Five star luxury

A lovely day today and so in spite of a painful hip I dragged myself off for a walk in the beautiful sunshine - who knows when we might see it again! What was intended to be a quick wander round the roads with a Blip in mind turned out to be a much longer expedition, stopping en route three times for long conversations. One of the conversants was a little old lady by the name of Bridie with whom I'd had a previous chat, though chat is hardly the right word. For twenty minutes or more I was forced to shout loudly no more than a foot from her face - as you might gather she's more than a trifle deaf! I wonder what the rest of the street thought of the conversation!

I wandered on and up to the ruins of the the 'Hydro', all that's left of the building that was to be known as the Oban Hills Hydropathic Sanatorium, or alternatively the Oban Hydropathic Establishment and Sanatorium. Begun in 1881 it was never quite completed for financial reasons, or maybe as the need for it had been overestimated. A lot of the stone was taken away for local houses - one nearby house has a lovely cone-topped tower, thank you very much! I'm sure that I've Blipped this before, but it's worth doing again!

The ruins are quite open in spite of being pretty dangerous - loads of cans and bottles inside point to the main use today! A little further on you get a wonderful view out over the town to the mountains of Mull.

On the way back I photographed a cargo boat approaching the North Pier, where she tied up, watched by a solitary gull on the roof of the Caledonian Hotel. The 'Marine Traffic' website tells me that she's the 'Carhie Anne' - not a spelling mistake apparently - belonging to Ferguson Transport & Shipping.