Recovery day

On Saturday, we (Bhuvanesh and I) went to the Loch Lomond highland games at Balloch. These guys wear shorts under their kilts.

Many a cabre was toss'd. It's kind of impressive.

And boys wrestling girls inevitably leads to tears (at least it did in this case, which was a bit unfortunate). No permanent injuries though.

However, there's only so much of the sorts of things that go on at highland games that one can tolerate, so we went off for a walk along the opposite shore of Loch Lomond, which turned into a bit of a trek...

... but that was probably good preparation for yesterday's walk up goatfell on the Isle of Arran, which involves a dash to the train station, a fast train to the coast, a leisurely ferry trip and then a reality check about how unfit I am at the moment.

We ran into Alasdair from uni - he was visiting his parents on Arran.
The views on the way up are great
There's a deer in there...
The views from the top are pretty spectacular, as all the guidebooks tell you, so it's worth the pain I'm feeling today.
And when we got down we had time for some sheep-watching

and a look at some old pagan standing stones - can't find these mentioned on any websites, but they were probably erected about 4000 years ago like the others on the island.

Then, a ferry and train trip later I arrived back pretty tired.

After a shower, I discovered that some joker tried to set off the fire alarm, because when I walked past the kitchen I smelled something burning - someone had put bread (charcoal when I found it) in the stove and left it on. I think it was my bread too. Anyway, I was prepared for another awakening in the night, but it didn't happen.

Today is Glasgow Fair Monday - it's a public holiday dating from the 12th century or something, so I slept in, recovering from the last couple of days of activity. I might wander over to the fair later - the sun is out. I feel exhausted, but a walk to the fair is probably a good recovery idea to stop me from seizing up.