Day two at Arrochar and it’s relative visiting time again. Due to a logistical miscalculation we ended up driving back to a little north of Edinburgh to visit Garry’s Aunt Molly who’s real name is Marion. Marion is spritely young Scot of eighty seven who by her own admission has porridge only occasionally and prefers Cornflakes (how anti Scottish). Adventurous, self-reliant and with a keen sense of humour, Molly sorry Marion only recently started to use a walking stick after a trip to the garden center resulted in a small mishap;

“I was feeling a wee bit tired from all the walking about so I lent on one of the displays which turned out to be not so solid you know and I ended up in the middle of a sort of floral display with my feet in the air. It took four of the people to put me right again so I thought I’d better get a wee stick to lean on”.

As it has been raining since we arrived in Scotland I asked Marion if it was always this wet to which she replied “Oh no, it’s been a wee bit dry lately.” In fact, Marion who doesn’t like the heat said she didn’t go out much last week because it was up to the mid to high twenties and that’s “to hot for going out”.

Garry in a moment of generosity insisted on taking Marion to lunch of the way to visiting the ancestral home. I suggested maybe some haggis. Marion immediately said “no I don’t like haggis but there’s a couple of wee shops on the way that do a good a bacon sandwich” (no porridge, no haggis……good lord!)

Garry’s ancestral home..

Garry asking Marion how to use his tablet, she has been in I.T. since the early 1960’s.

Just another Bridge.

Pictish Stone on the roadside, the meaning of which is lost in time.

By the way,  a Burn is a small river, a Smiddy is a blacksmith. That makes Garry’s Great Grandfather a blacksmith by a stream I guess.