Birds, fish and yarn

I've been fishing!  Since my parents came over and we discovered how easy it was to fish off the ferry pier I have been bitten by the fishing bug.  Fortunately I have friends down the road with the same "illness" and so we go fishing once a week (weather permitting).

I've caught a fair few mackerel including a couple of 1lb'ers.  I've also pretty much broken my reel.  It's the bit that holds the line, and the handle is one that can be changed round depending if you're right or left handed.  Great idea except that the pin that holds the handle on popped out and the handle is made of a soft plastic.  Reeling in fish and general wear and tear has meant that the handle no longer sits as neatly as it should to its axle and so it breaks my split-pins and pops off regularly.  Dad's sending up a new reel to try and if I like it Jo can buy me one for Christmas.

I also caught a pollack!


Didn't initially know what it was but a bit of Googling and checking with folk confirmed pollack.  Our freezer is getting a nice stock of fish for the winter now, even with me having devoured three fish after grilling them.

It's lovely standing on the pier in the sun and just letting the world go by while you cast, reel in, cast, reel in, repeat.  I've seen a shoal of fins as common dolphins came up to surface.  I've seen cormorants diving and I've seen seals and razorbills.




These are adults in their winter plumage, hence the white bits at the side of the head/neck.

The razorbills were great for knowing where to cast!  You could see the sprats going frantic as the birds dived so I'd cast about 20 feet to the side of them and get mackerel!

I've finished a mystery knitalong afghan.

48 squares, each 8" square.

It went in the wash with other knits and then got a good sunning on the line:


The yarn is mostly acrylic and can be washed on a normal wash, but it makes up a load nicely.


The pattern called for about 5m of cabled edging that you then sewed on.  After 1.5m I realised I wasn't going to finish it that way so I did two rounds of treble crochet and it finished nicely.

There's a Kaffe Fasset inspired one started in October and I'm going to do it for a friend.  The yarn arrived last week and it's now all in my knitting basket awaiting clue one!



The recommended yarn would have been nearly £200 and I had heard from people who used it for the last knitalong that the colours bleed and while it is pure wool it's not really worth the price.  So I chose the turquoise colourway and substituted in more affordable yarns.  I think I did okay considering I had to use internet sites and rely on photos of colours rather than go to a shop.

I've been finishing projects in anticipation of this blanket.  Just have the edging on a lace stole to finish and keep me occupied until 1st October.

That's about it for now.  Autumn is definitely here, Winter's not far off, but we are doing better than last year so I'm not complaining.

TTFN

Four days in Oban

For various reasons I had the joy of spending Monday afternoon to Friday Silly am in Oban.

On Monday I got the bus to the pier and started my four hour journey to Oban.  It was LOTI that took me there and I have to say, I do prefer her interior.


She arrive relatively light to Tiree:


We've recently had the Rene Descartes visiting the island on her mission to lay the fibreoptic cable to the island.





I thought she looked smaller than LOTI, but as Donald Meek of meekwrites notes with his photo, she's a fair bit bigger:

She was still there on Friday when I got back, while diggers were (I assume) digging a trench for the cable to the main exchange.

I took the odd photo on the journey over:









The Flying Dutchman was docked when I arrived:


Not there Tuesday.

I was booked into the Lancaster hotel which has a pool, sauna and hot tub facilities too!


I didn't try the above, not my kind of thing and I didn't have a cossie.  The room was a bit "retro" but perfectly serviceable:

(I was airing the bed!!!!)


I didn't use the shower in the end, it creaked ominously when I stood in it, so I washed at the sink.


Intercom?  Radio?  Whatever it is, it wasn't working.

That was Monday.

Tuesday I got up and had left the hotel by 8am.  Took the 8:57 to Glasgow and spent the day getting to an appointment and generally spending about 7 hours on trains.  Numb bumb!  I resisted the urge to take a photo of the huge chest-height NO SMOKING sign that was about 2' tall, 4' wide and was being leaned on by people smoking while the poles holding it up were full of cigarette stubs.

Wednesday was my "rest day" and I took the opportunity to do a spot of shopping and to mentally map Oban better.


I didn't think when it came to the shopping.  I did it in spurts over the days and so never really carried very much at one time.  Friday morning saw a very heavy wheely bag to drag to the ferry terminal!  Yes, I bought yarn.  It's the fumes!  There are two shops in Oban that sell it and well, when in Rome...

This dog was thoroughly enjoying the beach while its owner prodded his phone and looked bored:


The Loch Striven was quite busy:


The Isle of Mull was going back and forth as ever.  At one point she even ate a fellow ferry:






Just joking!  The Hebridean Isles was fine:


I was daft enough to decide to eat a pizza sat by the shore...




Fortunately they didn't try to nick it, they just waited for me to leave and then fought over the crumbs.

On my way into town I heard something like stones being thrown but couldn't immediately see the source.


Turnstones!  Perfectly camouflaged  on the beach.


Next to the cathedral there is a "sensory garden".  It has a bench that you can't see from the road.  The view from that bench is of lavender and happy bees:


I thought I'd spent an hour reading and relaxing there, turned out it was two.  Very nice too!

That evening I couldn't sleep and went out with the camera.  I scared a group of possibly German girls who walked past me and then screamed when they saw the person sitting two steps off the pavement.

I took something like 30 photos that evening, only two are worth sharing.  One is of Oban, lit at night:


The other is of the Colosseum:


Thursday was another appointment, this time in Oban.  There was this bemusing flower:




I got the spend that afternoon exploring a bit more.  I found the other cathedral, one where they ran out of funds before being able to complete the interior:






After a nice pub meal I wandered over to my favourite bench, but Thursday was muggy so I ended up sat on a pier dipping my toes and watching tiny fish:




I'm not sure what these cars were doing, but there were loads going through:


 Friday morning was Far Too Early.  Alarm went off at 4:15am, with the pub below my bedroom only having turned off the floor-shaking music at 1:15am, that was a lousy sleep.  By 4:45 I was out of the hotel and trotting to the terminal.  There was a mizzle and it was pretty dark.  For some reason the Colosseum was lit red:



I am now back home, recovered and going to go back to edging a blanket.

TTFN