Day Fourteen - Naturally Curvaceous

My other reader wondered what my daily life is like, so here goes.

Up before dawn, the lazy old trout. Got the fire going, as it was cold last night, keeping me awake and therefore able to hear, in detail, the meeting of a lady and a gentleman tawny owl in the pine tree above the tent. Go on my son, Bill Oddie's job depends on you!

It being early spring, I was washing me smalls in the Kyles of Bute, as you do, and then a pair of oyster catchers got on the case not twenty yards away. Have they no shame? Over on Bute, a mile or so away, you could clearly hear a cuckoo and a woodpecker, also the sheep farmer's quad bike, cos lambing's in full swing up here (all done in Devon, a month ahead). So then followed a blur of action as I, and sidekick Gerald, cooked up a mussel breakfast, picked last night (real whoppers), slightly charred some socks, necked a cuppa, packed up camp and took some daft pics. Up the road we rode, five miles, stopping at a pond for a watery fill-up (too manky),
and then at a reservoir (green, but the trout were lively. Quick! Pass me the grenades!).

At Clachan, we stop for petrol and a smash and grab shop for bread and some carrots to go with the hen pheasant I picked off the road. The cashier is friendly, as, unfailingly, is every person we've met in Scotland. We love you all, and your country is the tops, really! All this admin means it's now fully one and a half hours before we're ready to put on some miles. The bigger A roads round the sea lochs are pretty fast, so we ruthlessly dispatch the laggardly Sunday drivers and bikers. Lightweights, I think to myself as I whip round a bend... only to meet the local Fangio on the racing, ie my, line. Luckily he's not texting Kylie at that precise moment, so takes timely avoiding action. Good boy.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of drizzle, sun and slippery corners, about 800 of the little blighters to be not precise. So we are now mostly at the Kilberry Head campsite, opposite the Paps of Jura. I ask you, in this day and age, to name a pair of mountains after a lady's embonpoint is a bit much... I bet there is a Scottish Parliament committee agonizing over them as we speak...

Bye for now.

Photos from day 14.