2012 - HD6

Rather aptly, the place we're living in has a prog rock history - William Neal, an artist, most famous for his covers to Tarkus and Pictures at an Exhibition, two massive bloated offerings from the band who killed prog rock - Emerson, Lake and Palmer - bought this place, probably on the earnings from his music covers. He then sold it for a big profit years later to Jenny's dad. How about that then?

Today was a day of three thirds. It started really excellently, got crappy in the middle and evened itself out with a so-so ending. The great start was Back Bay (again), but this time with the tide going out, rather than coming in, we went round the head of the bay into another, almost secret, bay, with a fabulous unspoilt beach, massive rock formations and with the sun shining and the sea lapping at my bare feet, you could have been anywhere, wonderful.

Ness had given us a hard time to start with; getting incredibly arsey with Lexy and ending up attacking her in the back of the car. Ness went to the beach between the wife's legs, in the seat well, looking suitably admonished. The beach was crowded; there was at least five other people there. I ventured back into some of the caves with the camera and took a couple of funky pics (well, the wife likes them). I took my shoes and socks off and felt the sand and surprisingly warm sea between my toes. There isn't much better for nothing.

We stayed until gone midday with no real idea of what we were going to do. The wife suggested the Isle of Whithorn, but I felt that would be pandering to my wants too much so I suggested we go and do the Cream O' Galloway, the other smokehouse (mentioned yesterday) and possibly Creetown, which looked interesting on a map.

But first we decided to go to the highly recommended Bladnoch Inn and if that had been good we were going to pop over to the distillery and check that out. The pub was lovely, but only sold two lagers and Guinness - no beer, no keg or cask. It was not for me. So we didn't do the distillery, but I have a bottle of its scotch at home, so...

The smokehouse was poor and stunk of fish (no surprises there, but the other one was much nicer, if a little more expensive); Creetown was boring and we missed the only interesting sounding place. The Cream o' Galloway was over 30 bloody miles away and was heaving with people, I mean really heaving. The car parks were full, it was running alive with kids, it cost money to go into the place - an ice cream making factory and farm - and Marley was pissing us off a treat by now with her constant wailing and moaning in the back every time we drove past trees or standing water. The wife was getting a bit pissed off; we'd driven miles for no reason and had no alternative plan. I turned round and headed for the Gatehouse of Fleet.

Now, we saw this sign post that said National View Point, with picnic tables and other useful shit like toilets and stuff; so we turned out of Gatehouse and drove up the road and drove and drove and didn't see another sign for it. We passed a turning for some place called Lauceston and ended up at a little bit of parking in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't happy; Marley was sounding like a cow being gutted without anaesthetic and I could tell from the wife's body language that we were getting close to having a 'moment'. I turned round and we headed back to the park we saw in Gatehouse, stopped there and had some lunch before going into Gatehouse to have a look for a pub. They were all shut. But the river Fleet was great; the town is very dog friendly, we had ice cream and chilled and the mood changed back to how it had been this morning. The warm sun was also giving us both sun tans without us realising it.

I threw together some food for dinner and we're just sitting around now deciding what we're going to do tonight. So on retrospect, it was a day with lots of disappointments, too many to list, but after two really excellent days it was all but expected. Tomorrow could be interesting and HD7 might not appear until Saturday or Sunday, as tomorrow is moving day. We expect our day to go like this: go to the falls just outside Newton Stewart, then onto Glentrool for lunch in that pub and then back to Newton for a wee bit of shopping and some petrol, then back here, get things sorted and be away by 6pm. Saturday is going to be hot; I don't want to spend all day in the car (it's not fair for the dogs) and now I'm not going out on Saturday night, I'm going to need to get some shopping. Hey ho, best laid plans and all that...