Walking on the Beaches, Looking at the ...

As is becoming more often, beloved and I found ourselves alone on Sunday morning.

Tooli is away training the the UK School Games Squad, and Boy is out having fun with his Friends.

As Blipping is at the forefront of my mind, a walk down the harbour seemed like a good idea! The day before I had suggested a walk up Goatfell, to which beloved collapsed in a heap of laughter, to be honest, my first suggestion had been a walk to Dundonald Hill which at most, is 2 miles from the house, and I really had serious doubts If I could make that!

When we got to the Harbour we walked into the port itself. Access to the most interesting bits, the lighthouse (which is currently half demolished), and the sea walls, is restricted, which is a bit of a pain.

I spend a lot of my childhood hanging off the wall looking down into the crashing waves, hanging off the little pier below the lighthouse, waving to passing fishing boats and cruisers.

We had a nice view into the inner basin where the Fishing Boats dock. Access there is restricted too, because there is a busy fishing market operating there now, with fork lifts, and big burley trawlermen bouncing around chucking fish right left and centre, and to be honest, I really don't like the prospect of a slap around the head with a mackerel.

We were confounded by this sight initially. Both of us have really poor eye sight, but even with the camera it was difficult to figure out what we were seeing. Initially we thought it was seagulls, head down in the water, but as we looked (and then took the filter off the camera), we realised it was three seals. Apparently sleeping in the water.

We then wandered around to the Rocks, below the banking. Beloved tried to make his escape along the outside of the harbour wall. The distance between us growing so wide, he had to phone me to tell me he wasn't going to fall. I wasn't convinced.

I love the rocks. When I was little my gran lived opposite them, and they were my playground. I spent time down here with both my sister and my paretns, and then as I grew older my friends. The pools and the rocks are a never ending source of interest and discoveries.

Beloved and I walked along in companionable silence, broken every so often by my howling that I was stuck. He kept wandering off and looking to the sea. I often feel I took him away from the sea. I was his girl in the port of Troon, and I managed to wangle him away from the Navy. When I see him looking out to sea like this, I often wonder if he regrets leaving it.

As we wandered, I asked him, if he regretted the fact that I cried so much that he gave it up for me. He said, that he didn't remember me crying very much about it, and that he would have long since left anyway!

I just left it at that. Probably best!