To the Other Side ...

Colder still and colder ... it's bedtime, and I'm frozen already. But today we were on the first of this week's two trips over the water - this time to meet my sister and her husband to celebrate her birthday with lunch at Scott's restaurant in Largs marina, which is about halfway between our two houses. It was actually the first time we've met in person since the pandemic, which seems crazy when we can practically see down the coast to where they live, but as most of our meetings tended to be in Glasgow perhaps less surprising. 

Lunch was a (very hearty) fish and chips - something I can only enjoy safely in the middle of the day. I'm glad to be able to report that it was excellent, and the venue very pleasing with cheerful and attentive staff - though they really ought to train waiting staff on how to serve coffee cups without embracing them quite so heartily.  Afterwards, we went for a walk round the bay from the yacht basin to the Pencil, an early 20th century monument to the Battle of Largs in 1263. By this time a wind had got up from the north and was whipping viciously down the Firth, so I took a few photos of the view from that side and we scarpered. 

This gave me time to do the week's shopping in the Morrison's that I'd clocked as we came through Largs, though it turned out to be, as the man on the checkout told me, the Morrison's that time forgot. Quite apart from the customary feeling of discovery in an unfamiliar store there was a perfectly extraordinary layout that made perfectly ordinary things strangely difficult to track down, so I came away with several missing items. However, that means I won't need to go out in sub-zero temperatures tomorrow morning early - well worth it.

My actual photo for today is, I'm afraid, another night shot, taken at great personal hardship from the open car deck of the ferry back across to our side. It was just too perfect to miss that moon, riding high above the black water. I was splashed by the sea when I tried to take one forward from the front end (I can't call it a bow - it's square, not pointy) but was pleased with the light on the water in this one. We spent the evening with the fire full on watching the telly and eating cake - remember, we'd had lunch at 1pm and then nothing ...