Two celebrations

 

 

 

Just returned from a week on the Isle of Mull - an early birthday present from my sister and husband.  The weather wasn't too kind but it didn't stop us getting out every day, togged up in full waterproofs.  Occasionally the squalls blew away the rain clouds, the sun came out and the white sand beaches and blue sea looked just as it does in the photo above.  We stayed at The Longhouse (the low, stone building in the centre), Kintra, with this lovely view outside our windows.  We had hoped to see the visiting otters, but we were out of luck (although we did see fresh tracks on one of the beaches), and we only spotted one seal from the windows, but there were plenty of birds, including diving gannets to watch.

 

Dont be fooled by the blue skies because when it did rain, did it rain, and blow, and go cold enough for me to wear a hat (almost unheard of).  But even during the storms, the scenery was quite wonderful

 We were down on the south-west part of the island, so Iona was just a short crossing on the ferry.  Somewhere I have always wanted to visit, and it was everything I had hoped for.

After visiting the Abbey we walked to a beautiful beach, where my sister and I got our watercolours out, only to be caught in another shower of rain, so my attempts got washed away.  Still, I enjoyed searching amongst the wide variety of stones, among the rocks, for little pieces of greenish Serpentine, or Iona Marble.  Back on Mull, we did a walk along the coast one day (the wettest experience) to The Nuns Cave, where the nuns from Iona took refuge when they were banished from the island, for being too much of a temptation to the (sexist) monks!  Entering under a waterfall, the walls had a number of carvings, including crosses, masons marks, and a sailing ship.  The floor was deep in feral goat poo and covered in goat bones and carcasses.  Lovely!

 Back to reality - and my first visit to the plot on my return was a little too productive.  Despite collecting as much as I could before going away,  I struggled home, with frequent stops to rest, with six very large courgettes, lots of runner beans, windfall apples (next job is to pick them all), some rather ugly and marked, large tomatoes (which have made excellent soup) and a large bunch of sweet peas.  Tuesday night was the American style Harvest supper, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Hill Allotments.  It turned out to be very good, with a wide variety of food and drink, made from the fruit and veg we'd all produced over the season, and a lovely display of squashes etc and autumnal flowers.  Successful enough to repeat next year - and hopefully each year.

Back at home the tomatoes are a great success, and the chillis ripening nicely.  But I need to do some serious gardening as I am ashamed of the display in front of my house. Weedy drive, long grass with toadstools and a bed of dandelions in front of the garden wall.  I'm just waiting for some motivation.