Avuncular

A fine day out with Uncle Fred*, as it had been his 85th Birthday at the weekend and he's asked a few times to go down and see the boat. I left the camera in the car and this shot was taken as I trotted back to find him. He was full of reminiscences about Granton as he used to play there as a boy. Indeed his own Grandad worked at the end of middle pier where I found him standing. The dilapidated quay opposite is Esparto Quay where esparto grass was unloaded for the paper mills up the Water of Leith, which could have been yesterday from his conversation. And there was where the trains on the quay tipped coal into the trawlers packed alongside.
And the larger than life figure of Jack Noble appeared in his conversation a great deal. Jack who had hiked from New Orleans to Ottowa to enlist in the Canadian Air Force at the start of WW2. Who had ended up in Edinburgh after the war, and how he bought a Falmouth Quay Punt and brought it to Granton, despite never having sailed. And how he then sailed it across the Atlantic with a spaniard he'd picked up in north Spain. And how he was later killed flying a crop spraying plane. Great tales. And F's own sailing adventures up to Anstruther.
After that we just had to take in a pint at Teuchters in Leith.
Later (after the maw visit) I was back at the boat draining the oil. A gorgeous evening down there with a really high tide.
And of course, there was still time to drop into the Diggery Dogs. All in all, a grand day out.

[*faither of MCD]