Tales from Holy Isle and Vespa's birthday pics

The retreat went well and the feedback was very good. I took a picture of my favourite view on Holy Isle, which is looking down the pathway, through the garden and through the gate where you can (just) see Lamlash on Arran in the distance.

My favourite view

One of the most amazing things we did was go on an evening boat trip around the island. We never go round to the east of the island as it's a nature reserve, but the offer of seeing it from the water was too much for all of us. Grant, who's the manager on Holy Isle, was debating with me whether to call it a cruise or not. I said that if it was a cruise I'd expect cocktails and dancing. Well, the funniest thing was that, when we got on the boat, the boatman gave us all crisps and nibbles. Grant looked at me and we had such a laugh... I really was expecting cocktails to come next. They didn't, it stopped at the crisps, but it was a funny moment. Or maybe you just had to be there to see the humour!!

However, one of the other things about Holy Isle is that you can be guaranteed to find heart-shaped stones on the beach. There's heaps of them. But when we were round the east side of the island, there in the hillside, was a heart-shaped formation. It was such a surprise. Sadly, because my hands were so cold, it took me too long to get my camera to work on my phone, so I didn't get the best picture, but I do hope you can see it well enough. And it's not man-made.

Heart on the hillside

The day I got back was Vespa's 2nd birthday and I got a wonderful set of pics of him from his new person and his wife. It was just so lovely.

Vespa at 2

As a payback for their kindness I put together an album of Vespa's time with me and here's one of the first pics I took of him.

Vespa on 21st October 2014

He was so teeny tiny that it's hard to believe he grew to be the 32 kg tank he was when he left!

Vespa at Forfar on 8th April 2016

I'm now off to London as my mother is coming back from the Isle of Wight where she's been for the whole of August and being ill and in bed. I'm going to see her transition to her home in London and make sure there's food and generally checking on things for her. I'm hoping it's only going to be 4 days, but at least while I'm there I get to go to dinners with friends, which I'm looking forward to.

Hopefully be back at the end of the week.