The Butcher's Chop

I was very surprised to wake up this morning to a frost! I'm sure that the forecast said 'Heavy rain'! Anyway it turned into a beautifully sunny day, though of course at this time of year the sun drops below the hills quite early unless you walk to a viewpoint such as McCaig's Tower.

Spent some time this morning on Photo Club stuff, preparing for Wednesday's meeting and competition. After lunch I went out for a walk around the houses and came back via McCaig's Tower where the council guys have been busy over the last few days cutting down almost all of the shrubs and some of the trees around the Tower. I can't believe what they're doing - I asked them what was happening and they told me that the Tower was being hidden by shrubbery and needed to be exposed to view a great deal more. 

I'm afraid we got into a bit of a dispute about what they were doing and I told them how I'd tried a couple of years back to persuade the council to let me have a go at redesigning the area! The guys weren't impressed and said that they'd been given instructions to just get on with it! They told me that the guy who normally does the garden there was the council's only gardener and he was unable to spend enough time there. I told them that he was actually a painter! One of the two workers today said he was a gravedigger and the other looked after  sports fields! 

After a long discussion they told me that tomorrow they were beginning on the garden on the inside of the Tower, cutting most of the shrubs and some of the trees down. I couldn't believe it! They finally seemed to become more friendly and said that they saw my point of view (!) and asked if I would come up tomorrow and tell them what I thought should be cut and what should be saved. I told them that I didn't want to step on their toes, but they repeated that they would be pleased to meet me up there. So in spite of being an interfering incomer I might be able to do something to prevent the whole place being wrecked!

The same guys have unfortunately been up to the council's shrub beds outside the Corran Halls and cut most of the shrubs to stumps! Keep Oban Beautiful? No chance!

After all that, my Blip today is of the Tower from a slightly different viewpoint. Tomorrow's forecast is for heavy rain. Again.