Menofesticulatory; Having Friends For Festives.

...not entirely sure that title works, but it's the best I have for now! Today, I am sharing about the recent visit of Aitch. Travelling up the day before Diwali, she arrived nice and early in the afternoon on what turned out to be a lull in the dreadful weather. It was clear skies and sunshine all the way! 

This demanded a late afternoon ramble along the promenade. (After the regulatory cup of tea and catch-up natter, of course!) We took our time, just savouring this little burst of brightness. There were lots of people out enjoying it with their bikes and dogs and even some hardy souls in the water. We met a couple who were gathering stones to take away and paint up with bible references. They then place the stones back on the promenade, on the benches and walls, for folk to find and take away with them. We had a lovely chat, and they gifted us one each of their works.

We also spotted a notice about a tide marker. It was a tad confusing until a few yards further along, we spotted this...

The blue line at the foot of the post is where the high tide reaches at the moment. The orange marker is the projected high tide level in 2050. The promenade will be well underwater, as will the gardens of the houses and hotels on the shorefront. In a hundred years, tides could be lapping at the windows of the Hutch... half the town will have surrendered to the waves. The Highlands could once again become populated as the population flees the coasts...

Moving on. After sitting for quite some time enjoying the simple pleasure of a pinking sunset, an almost balmy evening, we wandered back to the Hutch via the Lamont Monument (again, see that link to Aitch's report - she discovered something that surprised us both). 

The morning of Diwali dawned, and it was, amazingly, another bright day. We had a leisurely breakfast and copious amounts of tea before Aitch went off for a wee explore of the town while I got on with food prep.

We had a late-ish lunch; I watched the live stream of Lakshmi puja from India, then lots more nattering, waiting for the evening to light all the diyas.

I only laid this many out because I don't really have a windowsill to load up with more - and besides, we needed the curtains shut to help keep the room warm because, with no clouds, the temperatures did drop! Once that was done, it was time to eat the yummies! (Aitch actually took this piccie - I was on autopilot when watermarking the images...)

There was the kaju curry and paneer dish that you saw in last week's video - plus moong dahl, raita, and chawal (rice). We did not go hungry! It was topped off with a lovely taste of genuine mithai - India sweets which Aitch had organised to be posted here. A joyous and satisfying repast. 

The following day, the weather reverted to situation normal and was grizzly, to say the least. However, there was just enough brightness for us to make an effort for a geocaching outing - which proved very successful. Three were slated, and three were found! You will see landscape pictures in an upcoming Me-Now-Views post, but let me share with you here something of interest from the second stop we made in a little forestry carpark area that I had somehow missed seeing all these years!

It may be a little difficult to see unless you biggify, but Dunoon is on the lower left quadrant of the map, near the marks for the ferry routes. The red mark to the left is the 'you are here' marker, as in this signage. This gives you a good feel for the (quite literal) lay of the land! In the next sign, you see mention of Loch Striven. That is the water that stretches up from the red mark and to the right of the next wee land point. Aitch wrote about it yesterday... and it has featured a mention on this blog on several occasions, not least involving one of my quiet hobbies - ship spotting!

What was interesting when we had finished admiring the scenery here, as we returned to Aitch's car, we both spotted at the same time something I had also failed to see on previous occasions - probably due to excess foliage, which had now been cleared.

As quite a few rocks were lying around, it might have been tempting to think it was a fluke - however, this area is well known for both Celtic and Pictish stones. Canmore records 'prehistoric' standing stones (2) at the north end of Loch Striven, so it is not at all unlikely that there would be more. Further, I did find a report from 2011 regarding access rights for walkers (a whoooole other subject...) which mentions that the core path here was once a mule or bullock path and that there are noted to be 'several standing stones' along its way. I could find nothing, however, about this specific specimen. I surmise the reason for this might be that it is actually on Ministry of Defence land, and therefore, there would be no access anyway.

Anyhoo, it gave another little spark of interest to what was really rather a damp and cold outing. By the time we got back for lunch to the Hutch, despite mooting another possible outing, the afternoon became increasingly drab and we simply opted to watch James Bond: Skyfall instead. Good choice!

Saturday, another leisurely breakfast (we're good at those!) and Aitch got herself packed on the road home by mid-morning. It had been a grand three days - and I can look forward to more because she invested in a whole book of ferry tickets!!!

The next visit will be from Mac1 again. Getting excited about that...

😊