Our tour through Auchinleck was made all the more interesting when Terry Seymour and his wife from the US turned up at the same time. He is a book collector and is at present making a catalogue of all the books that were in James Boswell’s personal library and had come to Scotland to measure up the size of Boswell’s library. He was a walking Google search engine on facts about Boswell and he and Sharon had a good time swapping stories. He was particularly interested to find that Sharon was a descendant. The library was a huge room and once contained over 2500 books. It was a special place and Sharon was happy to be here. More ghosts. We drove in the afternoon to Dumfries,
Last week we failed to find New Lanark but yesterday managed to do so. It is a World heritage site, a model village built by Robert Owen a cotton miller and humanitarian who looked after his workers in a way that was not usual for the day. Workings mills and cotton spinning machines were very interesting. We had some difficulty finding accommodation as there were sheep trials in town. I wonder how many were found guilty? Off to Van Diemans Land, the lot of you!
Blue Skye
The sun shone occasionally for our drive around the island. I know now why people clawed at the ground when they left this place. The high cliffs topped by green fields of sheep, endless mountain top views, white painted houses in quaint fishing villages and rolling plains of purple heather. We drove later to Inverness in the sunshine.
We had dinner in a pub playing traditional Scottish music which sounded very Irish. Later when I went to the toilet, I was confronted by a Jamaican man all in black sitting on the washbasin, playing Bob Marley on his I-phone. Behind him were numerous small bottles of coloured liquid and 3 or 4 pump bottles of soap. A saucer of coins was on the sink. “Hi mun! Howarh going mun!” he said as I went about my business.
When standing at a urinal with your back to a man pedalling bottles of rose water and soap, it is not easy to feel comfortable. My talk of the weather didn’t get much response from him and I was glad for the arrival of a couple of young rowdy Scotsmen. Glad to be in a pub toilet with three drunken Scotsmen with a Jamaican who wants to wash my hands! A shake of my head and, “She’ll be right thanks, mate!” seemed to have done the trick and I made my escape.