We met at the harbour for a coffee after James’ big walk today, as is our habit, to find a tall Swedish ship named Gunilla moored at the harbour. It was very elegant and had a huge amount of ropes attaching the masts to the deck. We noticed that it was just about to open to the public for the afternoon so we boarded it and were greeted by the friendly young people who sail it.
Gunilla was launched in 1940 and has been a cargo ship and a ferry. It was rebuilt in the 1990s and is now a three-masted Sail Training ship. It spends most of the year sailing around the Atlantic, crewed by upper secondary school pupils from a school which specialises in sailing, called Öckerö Gymnasieskolan.
In the afternoon we drove through to Nairn where we met Alison and Hugh. We all went to a New Writers event; part of the Nairn Book and Art Festival. I found it fascinating; the writers read out their own work and were very different from each other in content and style. Then we had a delicious dinner at the friendly Bandstand Bar and Restaurant, before a nightcap back at Alison and Hugh’s gorgeous house.
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