A Visitor from New Zealand

We have had a visitor for the past few days; it’s Kerry’s Dad Kevin. He is a very easy and relaxing visitor and joins in good-naturedly with our plans. He has a sore back just now, which hopefully is temporary, but he is determined to keep moving so we have walked into the village with him a couple of times when it’s sunny, to have coffee. We also went to the harbour, the bookshops and the outdoor shop and today we visited the new Handknitted Pottery shop on West Terrace. Kevin is a potter so he was very interested in the set up and chatted about techniques with the owner. We have been lucky to get some dry and sunny walks because the weather has been very fickle; heavy rain one minute and warm sunshine the next. 

Yesterday the weather forecast was truly dreadful so we decided to go for a run in the car to Inverewe Gardens. The rain wasn’t too heavy so we got good coastal views on the way there. On our arrival the young parking attendant told us that part of the gardens were shut “because of the hurricane!” Well it wasn’t a proper hurricane of course; what he meant was that it was the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto, which originated in the Caribbean and has brought us heavy wind and rain! Undeterred, and fortified by cake and coffee from the tea shop, the three of us set off into open part of the gardens and walked along to Inverewe House, pausing to look at the plants on the way. The house is quite impressive; James thinks that it’s his first visit, however I have been there several times while he has been hill-walking. It was raining even harder as we made our way back to the car via the NTS shop, so we drove the short journey to Gairloch and had a tasty lunch of soup and toasties at the Gale Centre. The wind was howling around the outside but we had a tasty lunch indoors, of soup and toasties. 

This evening Kevin very kindly treated us to dinner at the Ceilidh Place and I’m glad to say that the menu is back on form. The restaurant was busy but the service was still good, and we had a very pleasant time. Back at the cottage there was time for a nightcap before we got an early night because tomorrow we have an early start.