Maud moored in Oban today

Wow! What a night! Heavy rain and gusting winds. One of the doors under the house was somehow open and kept banging all night - I couldn't think what it was and wandered around the house trying to find the source of the noise! Hard to imagine that there are hosepipe bans in the south!

I walked down town after lunch, dressed for windy and potentially wet weather. I wanted to return a library ticket which the previous borrower of a book had left tucked into the cover. Of course the wind dropped and it didn't rain and I felt quite overdressed so had to stuff my jacket into my backpack and try to stay cool!

There was a cruise ship in the bay - the Maud, on a £3,000 per head ride from Dover to the north of Scotland and beyond. She was about to leave as I turned for home - here she is trying to avoid running down the 'Loch Striven' or hitting the Maiden Isle or both!

On the way back I called into Oban Distillery - in a couple of weeks the Oban Mountain Rescue will be abseiling down the slope beside Jacob's Ladder to kick all the rubbish down to the distillery wall and I wanted to make sure that there were no last minute hitches. The Site Manager took me through the building to see what already lay at the back of the building. What a lotta rubbish - and I haven't even suggested it to KOB as a clean-up job yet! It's going to be a logistical nightmare! What you see in the extra is but part of the problem and it will all have to come out through this narrow passage. Am I mad or am I mad?