Loch Tay - home of the fabled Loch Tay Monster.

We were meant to be away Friday and Saturday night at an idyllic campsite on the banks of Loch Tay, home of the fabled Loch Tay Monster that I just made up. A severe weather warning on Friday night, so we postponed our departure til Saturday morning, so we only had to enjoy the balmy midge-filled Saturday evening in a tent.

So Saturday, we skidded and slid the car across the mud-slide of a camp site with difficulty, mostly because of the evacuation of soggy campers that went on throughout the day. We decided to pitch just off the road, and by evening, it was just us, a green tent up the hill, and a refugee camp of some extended family of geordies in three enormous tents, in the prime site beside the showers. Loch Tay... geographically, was not far away, but it was a 45 degree descent down a mudslide and operational forest cutting. I kept myself amused and Diane a little annoyed with my persistent Mel & Kim impression... 'Tay tay tay tay t-t-t-t-t tay tay, take or leave us but please believe us we are never going to be respectable' at high volume at regular intervals. It was pissing down all night, apart from a 10 minute spell in the evening when I flew the kite. Then cooked beans crouched down behind the shelter of the car like a gnome. In the morning when I slid across to dump the can, and wondering where the green tent had gone, I found (?)it, flysheet, guy ropes, poles, the whole bang sheboot, dumped in the bin, with the owners nowhere to be seen. I bet there's a story there that kept me giggling all day. Crannog Centre,

where this spider turned up on the car


and (this is the birdy bit), lunch on the banks of the river at Dunkeld where there were enormous numbers of Sand Martins (Bank Swallows ) and Goosanders (Common Mergansers).