Remember the Old Day... Remember the OJays

We took another we run down memory lane today. 

Tooli bought us a print for Christmas - so we headed to The Range to pick up a Frame.  While we were there, we visited Asda and BQ to find a battery for himself's watch.

I said to him, I'd quite like to take a little detour home - and since I was driving he couldn't object.   I headed for Newton on Ayr, and as is the case with me and my driving I took the wrong road.  Himself got the sat -nav together and looked for the correct road. 

We found a road, that neither of us had been down before.  Only 6 miles from the house - but wow - the views along the beach that neither of us had seen before. 

Ailsa was hanging on to the edge of Dunure... Bute was sitting off the Cumbraes as big as Ailsa Craig. 

But then we finally found what I had been looking for... this big black building.    

This is Scotland's only Graduated Thorn Tower.    

An environmentally friendly tower built from Douglas Fir - taken from the Galloway forests, and filled with Blackthorn sticks - from hedgerows around Ayrshire.  Sea Water is dribbled down through the sticks, allowing the water to slowly meander down the tower imbibing itself with the tast of the blackthorn sticks. 

The resulting brine is left to evaporate, and then the salters add some heat and beautiful salt crystals for cooking with are formed. 

Sadly it was all closed down today - but we will return, now that we know where to find it, and we will visit and buy some up. 

If you look closely at the photo to the right of the old railway carriag e- you will see a hill with a Mast on top - We live just to the other side of that mast.  So you can see what a short distance away we were. 

Amazing what you find if you look hard enough. 


And I never mentioned the memories we dug up.  When we appeared back into the streets we knew- we were sitting opposite where Joe's cafe Used to sit. 

I said to Si, "it was open til about 2 in the morning; we would drive down after the Anchorage (the local D.I.S.C.O)... get coffee sober up, make arrangements for the next night...   Si was, "you drove down??" and I said not me personally, but there were always lifts to be had.   Which led me on to another sorry tale, which I will recount another time.