While others did more energetic things I spent my first day on the Isle of Arran lazing on the beach. A perfect activity for my first weekend of maternity leave. True the To Do list post work and pre baby arrival has much still to be crossed off it - but relaxation is as high on the important tasks list as buying nappies, learning how to put the car seat into the car, writing a birth plan, stocking the freezer... cleaning the flat...and on and on... (breath breath).
With an early start - and a taxi, two trains and a ferry we got ourselves from Edinburgh to Arran by around 11am. Getting away from home for a long weekend was the best way to make relaxation top priority - and the fact that we had sunshine made it very easy. If the days were rainy no doubt I would have ended up buying baby kit online - but with the sun out I found a patch of sand and alternated between re-reading Harry Potter, dozing, letter writing and my habitual making of lists.
World Watching List
cloud catches on the top of Goat Fell
a woman talks on her mobile phone
a one armed boy skips stones
dogs sniff fascinatedly at seaweed
the ferry comes in, depositing more weekend visitors
children come with their buckets and spades and carry on the important work of digging
a ladybird and bumblebee visit me
a small boy is taken for a pee in the tall grass by his father
two swans bob on the bay together
cloud unsnaggs from Goat Fell
the ferry goes out
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| cloud gazing over Goat Fell |
Of course I would not have been in Scotland if at a certain point in the afternoon half the island did not get blanketed by dark cloud. I held out on my patch of beach for a while - but was eventually forced to concede and go inside. Thankfully the sun was back out before too long and the weekend continued in the same pattern - brilliant sunshine broken by rain and then sunshine again. I am pleased to report that I was well and truly relaxed and did almost nothing whatsoever practical and in the proper spirit of a summer holiday even managed to get sunburnt.
Sights Seen List
Brodick Castle gardens - including summer house, ice house and walled garden
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| Brodick Castle |
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| Bee watching at Brodick castle |
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| walled garden at Brodick Castle |
Machrie Standing Stones
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| Dramatic skies over the ancient Machrie standing stones |
small mole (or possibly a shrew)
seals - and seal sculpture
much bird life
Lochranza Castle and bay
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| Lochranza in the sunshine |
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| a fisherman and Lochranza castle |
Arran Distillery
Sheep
hairy coos
pretty island villages
