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Last full day in Rhu

The last few days in Rhu were delightful with a lovely walk to the Glenarn gardens and then uphill towards (but not very close to) Loch Lomond. The Monday that Alex and David went home (8 July) was the best I'd had in Scotland, but the gorgeous weather only lasted a few hours and then it was back to normal.The train journey home went very smoothly and I had just time to trot up to Princes Street and say hello to Edinburgh before carrying on. I was rather pleased to find that LNER offers free lunches and drinks to its first class passengers (which I could only afford through split ticketing). With the change at York it all happened twice, and I could have had two lunches and the best part of a bottle of rosé if I'd put my mind to it (I didn't). I saw the sea a few times too but guess what, it was raining again.

Glenarn Gardens

Four lovely tablemats bought in Helensburgh

There followed a slightly manic month of work, walks, trying to catch up with friends and trying to stop the garden from growing right over the house. The time I spent working on the magazine in Whitehills really paid off, and the sprint to the finish was much calmer than I had feared. I even had Ivy (my granddaughter) to stay for a couple of nights and still managed to finish the magazine 10 days earlier than the original plan. In between all of that a filling came out of a tooth, resulting in a low-grade infection. I saw a dentist, not my usual one, who treated the nerve and put a dressing on the tooth.  But by the Friday I still felt definitely below par and saw a different dentist who said it couldn't possibly be infected any more but did eventually prescribe antibiotics. I hate to take them, but in this case I suspect there is still a pocket of infection which hasn't been removed, as that has happened to me before with another tooth on the same side which ached for years before it was removed. Hopefully gallons of kefir and Activia yogurts will counteract the affect of the amoxicillin – in the past, penicillin-related antibiotics have given me terrible stomach upsets.

The train journey north on an August Saturday was slightly less peaceful than the trip down, but my new Loop earplugs definitely helped. Again split ticketing came up with a first-class ticket but on the other hand I had a very long wait at Peterborough and a very short sprint through Edinburgh Waverley! The North Sea looked blue and I suddenly realised it was visible in places where I hadn't spotted it on the way down because the grey sea had been the same colour as the grey land. I was fortunately on the right side of the train for Durham Cathedral, the bridges in Newcastle, the harbour at Berwick and the sea. Eventually I even managed to get some lunch, but it took an hour and a half, by which time I had eaten my pudding and had two glasses of wine. It's a tough life.

View from the train 1: Durham

View from the train 2: Newcastle

View from the train 3: can that really be the North Sea? (near Berwick)

At Helensburgh I was able to pop around the corner to the Co-op and buy necessities before having plenty of time to catch the bus to Rhu. Kalessin was fine although a bit damp. I discovered that Erika's Earl Grey teabags had gone mouldy! And on the Sunday I collected a secondhand winch bought from other CA members (not sure when I will ever fit it...), a bow fender and a pack of Cobb charcoal from the helpful marina office before setting off towards Troon.

View from the boat: Rhu