Walks, and walks

Several of my fellow-blippers note here how their mood can be affected by the news, or by the current restrictions, or simply by reflecting on the world and how it will be. As the weather brightened this afternoon, luring us out into what turned out to be a rather Arctic north wind - that wind that suddenly blew up here around midnight last night - I think we were both dragging our feet slightly. Where would we go? Would the usual places be weekend-busy? Were people venturing out more with the rumours of the end of lockdown in England?

"Let's walk out the Sandbank road," I said. "We might get as far as the Neolithic site" ... but we got fed up with traffic passing long before that, and cut off down the road that leads to the coast, locally known as Lovers' Lane. We've driven down it a few times over the years, but I think we've only walked it once since the days when I pushed the pram out one summer afternoon 46 years ago and went exploring.

It turned out as a walk over over 10 kilometres, taking us through beautiful unspoiled woodland (extra photo) to the coast road at the Holy Loch. My main photo is of that road; we'd emerged on the left just behind where I'm standing. The house on the left, just visible behind the bus stop, used to belong to my best pal in the mid-70s; I would take my #1 son when he was a baby and then a toddler to play with her little dog and be adopted as a younger sibling by her four children. The youngest of these children became my god-daughter and had a birthday just the other day, and despite the worries of money and new parenthood and buying a house, the times we spent here were among the happiest I remember.

The water to the right of the road is the Holy Loch, where the US Navy Nuclear Submarine Base Site One used to be. The monument is at Lazaretto Point, and is a war memorial to the dead of the First and Second World Wars. We walked from here right round the coast, away from Lazaretto Point, round the outskirts of Hafton Estate, now a holiday village but 46 years ago a wooded area with a grand house at its heart; we passed the Western Ferries terminal, through Kirn (subject of my blip a few days ago) and along the East Bay to Dunoon. By the time we climbed the last hill to our house our feet were killing us (all these pavements!) and we were ready for our dinner. And I'd forgotten to feel doomed.

Nothing like a walk, really ...