A castle in the sea

Having been warned that today was to be the last good day for a while we were disappointed to wake up to a dull, cold morning. We went down town as usual - fresh fish from the pier and a quick visit to the library, just to return books this time.
 
While I popped into Pets at Home for birdseed the sun came out - my extra today - so we decided to drive the 17 or so miles up the coast to Appin, and have lunch at the Castle Stalker café. Lovely views across the water and over to Castle Stalker itself. Caisteal an Stalcaire in the Gaelic, the castle sits on a small islet just off the shore. On the site of an earlier fort, the current castle is believed to have been built in the middle of the 16th century. There are occasional tours over to it - we went over a few years ago.
 
We called in to Kinlochlaich Garden Centre on the way back - I wanted to enquire about hedging plants - then turned off down the road to Port Appin to have a quick walk over the Jubilee Bridge. This long bridge is a 19 span timber footbridge first built in 1897 to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria and used originally to provide access between two local churches - and a welcome shortcut for the postie. It crosses the saltmarsh at the head of Loch Laich. It’s getting a bit rickety again and the community is trying to raise money to repair it. We had a walk over it and fortunately it didn’t collapse under our weight!
 
Then home again, calling at a book shed in Barcaldine to have a browse through the rather damp books - I didn’t take very many!
 
Quote of the Day: ‘A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.’ - Jerome Lawrence.