Monday, by the bonny, bonny banks

Time to leave Moffat. 

Before describing the day let's add a picture of our current venue so it becomes the main picture for the post (although I think many of the others are better) 

Right, back to the day. First port of call was Sanquhar for the museum, particularly the Sanquhar knitting patterns history. Ah, not a good start, the museum doesn't open on a Monday. Still the community shop sells Liz a couple more pattern books, including one for a hat. Hopefully a hat for me. Still we did find this curio.

The oldest working post office in the world!

The route now takes us through Glasgow and under the Clyde Tunnel. Despite some extremely tricky navigation it was actually fast flowing traffic all the way. God, did I get daggers looks for a lady who I forced allow me into the correct lane after I'd dare get one junction wrong! Sometimes road signs are not all bad news, the one saying "You are now leaving Glasgow" being one! 

On to the village of Drymen to pick up some veg from the local Spar shop. It's on the West Highland trail and very popular with mountain bikers. Note the charging points for electric bikes

and the roadside repair centre

Look at all the tools hangng in anti-theft chains 

Eventually we end up at the Loch Lomond campsite and immediately bumped into one of our friends who had left Moffat yesterday. We knew she was heading this way but not necessarily to the same site, so that was nice. 

As is Loch Lomond

Despite Glasgow driving wasn't too bad today

And yes we could have cut across country to Sanquhar rather than the longer route via Dumfries but the latter was all in decent, barely pot-hole rutted A-roads!

Carvery Karma

Despite the challenge of being presented a single bill for Friday night's meal the remaining 10 of us decided to return to the Black Bull for their Sunday carvery. £16.99 or include an £8.99 dessert for an all in price of £19.99 didn't seem to bad to me. 

And to be fair it was good, I had three thick slices of beef and the slightly blackened edge suggested wood fire or smoke involved somewhere in the cooking process. I would have liked to try the Cullen Skink soup as a starter but didn't think I could manage. Shame really as the cheesecake dessert was distinctly average, so the starter would have been the better option. 

This time the bill was split by table. Our table, all going for the carvery dessert deal. We also all had drinks (my 250cl [yes, ⅓ bottle] of montepulciano d'abruzzo I though excellent value at £8.50, especially as it was rather good. Anyway we were two couples so the 76.85 bill we rounded up a bit and split in two, paying £43 each including tip 

Come on, who's on the ball??? It was only when I got back to the van that it hit me - four of us on the table all having £20 meals and drinks, that's £80 plus drinks (a quick guesstimate was that drinks, including my £8.50 wine, came to almost exactly £20). That's £100. With tips £110, so £55 each. Well that's my £15 shortfall from Friday night's cock-up covered and my mate wins a few quid. See what I mean about karma!

Back to the van and typical Sunday afternoon stupor, a large meal and alcohol does that. The weather wasn't conducive to the group sitting outside so Liz and I sat and tussled with, swore at, and generally struggled with the the various campsite and ferry websites and apps before wrestling some sort of coherent trip into shape. All the ferries are now booked, as are key campsites. We appear to be covered around the island and back to the mainland but there's a couple of more details still need sorting. It was pretty close to bedtime but the time we'd finished! It's hard work this, these sorts of holidays don't organise themselves y'know 

Note: today's image is a copyright free carvery image just used to give the post a picture and despite being not dissimilar to the Black Bull in Moffat's carvery is not them (well it could be, but most unlikely)

Merin - Bollocks

A late start again but off into town to the Moffat museum. We do so love these small, local museums, labours of love and home to the curious and unusual. 

Moffat was mainly local history and had a focus on the railway that used to run through the town. But the highlight was an exhibition on the druid Merlin. The Scots believe that Merlin was actually the local wise man Laoloken who also went by the names Merlyn or Myrddin. Back in those days the Scottish lowlands were under the rule of the Rheged tribe, Welsh speakers who controlled the NE, so Merlin/Laoloken would have spoken old Welsh  

But then came Geoffrey Of Monmouth who, with no real evidence, wrote "Historia Regnum Britanniae" (History Of The Kings Of Britain) which established Arthur, Camelot, Tintagel, a Welsh Merlin and the whole myth culture eventually leading to to T. H. White's Once And Future King (where Disney took The Sword in the Stone from) and Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave quintet 

Anyway if anyone is as fascinated as me, the talks from the Moffat based Merlin: Fact or Fake conference can be found here.

 https://merlintrail.com/merlinconference/

And the crudity in today's title? When I first saw this I thought "gosh, aren't the Scots specific in their weapons" but, of course, I knew it was to do with the shape of the handle

A last mooch around town, into the sweetie shop (that also has a wide range of beer and spirits) for some van sweeties (sherbet lemons and liquorice drops) and then to the one shop we'd not discovered previously, the local community shop, a charity shop in the premises of the recently vacated police station. A large haul of eight CDs (Dave Gilmour, Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithful, Joan Baez etc al) and a knitting pattern came to the princely sum of £2.50. When I announced that I like to haggle in charity shops the elderly scots woman bristled and started to say "Oh noo" until I continued by saying that I thought the goods were worth £5 to me and would she be happy with that? I do love haggling upwards, it confuses so! 

At last it's warm enough to sit outside, so back to the site, pull up a chair, pop the cap off a beer and set the world to rights with friends. Y'know it don't get much better than that!

Meals and Maths

Friday evening was the group meal down the local gastro-pub. 12 hungry souls trudged the few hundred yarda from their vans to the Black Bull pub in Moffat.

The food was good and reasonably priced, and the Black Bull also happens to have two hand pumps on for beer (one of only two pubs in Moffat with real ale)

For the record Liz had a huge Mediterranean Salad, with olives, pomegranate, feta, cucumber and mixed leaves (and none of the thing that so annoys her with pub salads normally - raw onion, they always add far too much in in her view). Me, I went for the haggis, tatties, and neaps pie. Yep HTN in a Scotch Pie pastry shell served with broccoli and a whisky sauce. The more astute reader will have notice the absence of the word 'chips'! Worried me a bit but it was very good and more than enough without them.

No, the problem came at the end when we were presented the bill 

Yep, nothing had been itemised, so the bill for the 12 of us was £413.44 and they didn't know how to split it. Of course the sensible thing would have been, like every other place we've been, for individuals or couples to go up to the till, say what they'd had and have their individual account subtotaled on the till for them to pay. 

But no! Someone had to take charge, some of the group were getting restless to leave etc; hence the paper napkins and hastily scrawled figures. I sent folks off, individuals or couples, with a figure to pay and slowly the till account whittled down until it was just mine and Liz's tab left. The extra £8 was unwelcome (a couple of folks must have forgotten a couple of drinks) but then I realised no-one has left a tip so I was well out of pocket 

And remain so, one person still has to pay his share of the tip and another doesn't tip (but didn't offer to reimburse me for including their party of the tip). Still I'm not only about £15 or so short - I can live with that.