Steaming on Loch Fyne

After a long drive into Glasgow yesterday, a short trip to Tarbert was the plan to catch the Waverley on one of her summer Clyde cruises. In the season, she calls into Tarbert on Tuesdays and takes a short turn up Loch Fyne before returning to the Clyde. We made it to Tarbert in good time for her 1445 sailing, only to find that she’d never yet docked at the East Pier before 1505 – apparently due to a conflict over berthing at Rothesay with the CalMac ferry.
It was blowing half a gale when she eventually appeared in sight, making the pier only ten minutes after coming into view. Although we’d seen her sailing down the Clyde the previous day en route to the Burrell Collection, seeing her coming up Loch Fyne was like standing back one hundred years to the hey-day of the Clyde steamers. She was a visual anachronism, moving at a speed that would shame a modern ferry.

We all stood back as the Harbour Master and his son took the lines ashore and made her fast.

One more from the detail of the funnel:

Because she was late and the trip up Loch Fyne was truncated, we paid a lesser fare than advertised, so I spent the savings in the bar.
The Waverley is a fantastic survivor, even if only 60 years old, she represents an older age and one deep-rooted in the traditions and folk-memories of the Glaswegians. And it’s no struggle to see why: this vessel is a constant visual delight and very comfortable. With her wide beam to accommodate the paddles she is very stable even in a gale. It’s possible to walk right around the huge cranks of the engines as they drive the shaft – she can go as fast astern as she can forward – and small viewports permit a glimpse of the paddles through the frothing water.

A visit to the Burrell Collection

Kat (#2 daughter) is up for the week to spend some time with her old man during the holidays. Since she’s been studying art and design at college, this was a perfect excuse to go off into Glasgow to visit the Burrell Collection. This is a collection of around 9000 pieces of art ranging from the ancient Egyptian to modern paintings, gifted to the City of Glasgow by Sir William Burrell and his wife sixty years ago and housed in a purpose-built mueseum in Pollock Country Park.
I was amazed at the sheer variety of artefacts on display. Silverware, glassware, carpets, tapestries, pottery and porcelain, Chinese, Islamic, French, English and Dutch – more than can easily be seen at any one visit. There are many, many pieces of furniture and building elements on display as well, including, to Kat’s surprise, a carved medieval ceiling from her home town in Somerset. I’d been staring up at it for ages, looking at the incredible detail on the carved bosses and thinking that it reminded me of the work of the monks of Muchelney, which I’d seen in places like the parish church in Somerton, when I read that the ceiling had come from Somerset at about the same time.
Other delights are almost too many to mention. It’s occurred to me that I ahven’t even mentioned the Rodin and Epstein bronzes. I much preferred the Epstein, although I was entranced by the sheer humanity and compassion of the model for one of the Burghers of Calais.
The French tapestries were a delight, with fascinating small details to be found on careful observation. These are all hung along a long gallery that links all the other galleries which project from it like the teeth of a comb.
But, and to my delight, there was a small gallery of paintings at mezzanine level which left me blown away. I’d already embarrassed myself to my daughter by failing to recognise a Rembrandt self-portrait at twenty paces, so to be surrounded by works of exquisite delight was wondrous. There are several Degas paintings, mainly from his Ballet Dancers series, a Cezanne, some medieval madonnas/ae, but the one that kept me fixed in place for a long time was a Whistler:

For me, it was worth driving 200 miles in the day just to see the paintings. Recommended to anyone visiting Glasgow.

Report from the fun day

The village held its annual Fun Day yesterday, which was opened with the usual flourish by the Mid Argyll Pipe Band:

This year they were joined by a pipe band from Poland, who, with the occasional borrowed drum, gave a fantastic performance in front of the village hall:

There was the usual fish race, although the event was run over the jumps for the first time, with the burn course being chosen in preference to the fast straight of the river. John can be seen entertaining the anxious crowd in the first picture as news from the upper reaches of the burn was anticipated; in the second picture he is gathering in the also-swams:

My personal favourite from the afternoon was the peregrine brought by the local falconer. Just admire her:

Local crafts were on display and the church held a television-themed flower show:

In the evening we had a ceilidh and the hall was, to use the local vernacular, mobbed. We’d sourced some scrumpy from Somerset and we strutted our stuff with the ceildih dances we’d been trying to learn over the summer, with more or less success.
The plan is to try to do something different next year and we are contemplating a local real ale (and imported cider) festival over two days, with local food and music. So far, all gathered opinion is favourable and, you never know, it might even come off!