Rain didn't stop play ...

We’ve known for days now that our planned family trip on PS Waverley this year wasn’t going to enjoy good weather, and in the event the weather was … dire? It didn’t stop raining throughout, and there was a stiff southerly wind that made for draughty moments on deck and a decided rolling movement round the north of Arran - but we’ve had a lovely day. 

It wasn’t the entire family this year: Catriona had other plans on her birthday (the actual date being today), but our older son and his boys were already aboard when we joined ship at Tighnabruaich, a 45 minute drive from home. By the time we caught up with them, they had met our friend Chis, the tenor of our quartet and godfather of our younger son - and Waverley buff, and after seeing the ropes hauled aboard we all repaired to the dining room for tea and a late lunch, sitting at the long, green-topped tables on the traditional dining room chairs among the fittings of another era. (Waverley was built in 1947). Seated at the inner end of the table were two young women, one of whom suddenly asked me: “Are they musicians?” She turned out to be a professional flautist on holiday in her native Scotland, who’d overheard talk of Busoni between Himself and Chis … and the conversation engulfed the whole table as if we’d all known each other for years. A real Waverley moment - and later, when Himself went over to find out her name, there grew the possibility of a performance at a future date …

Our cruise took us to Lochranza on Arran, and on round the north coast of the island, which we could see through the driving rain. We’d all gone on deck to see the docking, to look up the loch at the ruined keep there, to get wet again … and we went back below. This time we ended up in the bar, and there we stayed for the rest of the cruise (not drinking - we all needed cars when we got off) but making forays on deck or to watch the engines. On one such visit to the deck, I was able to witness something that was  a feature of the steamers’ departures from Brodick at the end of the holidays, when people still standing on the pier would throw toilet rolls  (probably taken from boarding house loos) as streamers at the departing ship, where their less fortunate friends on board would catch them and the ship would appear moored to the pier by long strips of toilet tissue. It worked much better, it has to be said, in the days of Izal and Bronco toilet paper - the hard shiny variety withstood the rigours of being thrown far better than soft tissue, especially in the rain. But it was a joy to see it today, at the last departure from Lochranza pier of this summer season. 

We were first off; I’d had lovely conversations with both my grandsons and hugs from everyone and didn’t really mind the downpour as we bashed along the road back to the car park in Tighnabruaich , nor the cloud through which we drove on the high part of the single-track road, nor the floods on said road. Gradually we heard from the others that they too had made it home - to Millport, to Edinburgh - and could relax.

Not everyone’s idea of how to spend a wet Monday, but certainly high among the more enjoyable things in my life!