Menootanaboot; Moving West

Sunday 12th August (the 'glorious twelfth') was one of those Scottish 'summer' days which are best described as dreich. This word incorporates properly wet with chilly, foggy, grey, gloomy and far from suitable for sight-seeing.

K&D, the YAMster and Li'l Ren were on the road by nine in the morning and first took the ring-road out to the West of Edinburgh before taking the M9 North as far as Perth and then West again towards Crianlarich. We made a short detour up to Killin, where there was sufficient break in the precipitation to permit some of the aforementioned sight-seeing. The main sight was, of course, the cascade Falls of Dochart.

We had wanted to visit the old mill... however, the volunteer of the day had opted to stay at home, it seems. Who could blame him? It was, after all, dreich. Given a choice, we might have remained tucked up.

At the falls, K&D decided to risk a walk upon the rocks. A little slippery, but something to say one had done!

After this, there was word from Gail and Bertie that they were about 40 minutes away. A walk down the main street was in order to fill some of that time. It felt a little forlorn, to be honest. The weather the main culprit, but also a glaring absence of tourists. This is one of the places very much on the couch tour list - and, to be fair, there were a couple of coaches - but when we stopped in at the Wee Sweetie Shop, Shiela told us the whole summer had been down on the usual numbers. She thought the very hot summer, ironically, was to blame as most British folk opted to stay at home.

By the time we had come back the hill to the pub for lunch, Gail and Bertie were waiting for us. Our meal was taken (with some adjustments due to 'no mozzarella' for Gail's main and no rice for Kristen's or mine... yeah, it was ordinary, but at least warming and filling), then Kristen joined G&B in their car and Drew got the front seat of the Ren for the next part of the journey West and little South. We took a short break at Tarbert, Loch Lomond, and were at the Hutch by late afternoon.

Lots of chatter, food and a reasonably early bedtime took us through to Monday and another filling breakfast, lots of chatter and decisions to be made about where to go. The weather being dreich...

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A reminder, peeps, that next week is FFF!!!