A Long Weekend Guest
Nicki and I have been trying to arrange a visit for a couple of years, and up until now it has never been quite the right time. But, finally, she is here! She arrived Thursday evening and we had dinner together and a catch up and then I had to sleep as I had work the next morning.
Friday after work we popped round to Dave and Heather's as they were taking part in the Cowal Open Studios weekend - an art trail where local artists open up their home or have a stall somewhere to show off their creative skills. Dave makes wood and metal sculptures of all kinds and had a walk round their garden to see his various ideas brought to life. Then we walked a mile down the road to the waterfall walk where I collected some mushrooms for dinner - chanterelles, hedgehogs and a giant white funnel. I did eat them all last year and to her credit Nicki trusted me enough to eat them as well. I made a lovely chicken and mushroom risotto. On the way back we stopped on a bench to admire the view and then had to huddle under Nicki's broilly as we got caught in a rain shower. But, of course, the pay off was a lovely little rainbow afterwards.
The next morning was Saturday so we headed out on the skiff for a couple of hours, saw lots of seals and ate two pieces of cake with coffee. Then we checked out a few Open Studios stalls at Colintraive village hall and had a cup of tea and another cake from my colleague Sai's vegan bakery stall - a yummy cinnamon bun for me and biscoff cake for Nicki. Then on to Glendaruel village hall for the photography exhibition of photos of the glen by local people. I had entered one photo that I thoguht was ok, but there were lots of lovely pictures entered and a small selection of cute drawings by the school children as well. And, a lovely surprise - I won a little prize! On the way out we picked up some delicious lunch from a BBQ stall - steak with pickles and salad. We had a nice afternoon in, chatting, and even managed to fit in another slice of cake with dinner - four pieces in total today - a personal best I think!
Sunday was a rainy weather day so we headed out to Inverarary. The nice thing about different guests is that they like to do different things and Nicki fancied the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar for lunch. I got us a reservation. We were slightly early so we looked round the gifts in the garden centre next door and then wandered over to see what was on the menu. It is a lovely place - cosy and relaxed - not how I expected it really. Nicki chose the mussels and I went for the interesting sounding kedgeree scotch egg - I mean why did no one think of that before! And some hand cut chips with aioli dip. It was all amazing! And the brownie with blood orange sorbet for dessert was pretty good too!
We continued on to Inveraray to look round the shops, buy some traditional sweeties and then back to Fyne Ales to share a flight and an Oktoberfest pretzel and pet the visiting dogs.
Monday we went to Bute. I have been a few times but it is always nice and always throws up something new too. We started at Mount Stuart, which I had visited before but is absolutely stunning. The marble chapel is so beautiful, and should you wish to get married there it'll only cost you around £3500! The constellation ceiling in the main hall is my favourite thing, apart form the bedroom that leads straight into a gorgeous greenhouse with a view over the loch. We also found the walled kitchen garden which I had missed the first time round, and it was lovely - plenty of flowers in bloom, scented herbs and butterflies.
We drove on round Bute, admiring the view over Arran and stopping at Scalpsie Bay to see the seals - there was only one but it was very cute and we got very close. It was wonderful to be walking along the beach, by the waves, in the warm sunshine and sea air - it felt good - we felt good!
We finished off with the Victorian toilets, of course - no trip to Bute would be complete without visiting the conveniences. Then we set off for home with a pizza in the bag for tea.
It has been lovely having Nicki here for a few days - very chilled, great company, lots of fun and a great opportunity for me to get out a bit too. I hope she visits again before another two years is up!
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