Places that take your breath away

Today I spent the day at places that take your breath away.  First off, breakfast at my hotel,  Rowantree hotel.  Tea, eggs and toast.  That’s traditional.  Did not eat porridge.  Will not be eating porridge, unless nothing else is available, or I have run out of emergency rations or I can’t hold out until lunch.  Porridge definitely has very bad associations.  Then off for a walk, and to discover where the tour bus departs from.  The Information Centre was named appropriately, and I was just in time for the 11:00 a.m. bus.  The tour began in Oban, went north for an hour, then out to the Isle of Siel.  We were given 30 minutes to wander about before returning to Oban.  Wilson was our tour guide and he did a splendid job, sort of a cross between a historian and a gossip columnist.  Or maybe they are the same thing. 

My caffeine intake has certainly not suffered.  I have had tea and coffee almost at every stop.  For lunch I had a bacon roll, my all time favorite, and a coffee.  Most of the coffee is dispensed from a machine, and you can order it black or white.  Black is obvious, but white is with steamed milk, so essentially it is a latte.  Hamish was the 2 year old sitting at the table next to mine, and he was quite fussy until I gave him one of my chips.  Hamish had on a knit cap, a jacket, overalls, a blanket, and no shoes or socks.  Hamish, his mum and grandmother had come down from the hills to town for the day. 

Visited the grocers today, Tesco and Farmfoods.  Tesco is my all time favorite, they have 3 aisles of produce and it all looks amazing.  There were three different colors of carrots, what a great carrot salad that would make.  They also have dog food and cereal on the same aisle.  That’s curious.  Farmfoods is an interesting grocer, all the food is frozen.  Really.  I guess that’s why it’s not called Fresh foods.

I made a list today.  Which is quite odd, because it occurred to me two days ago that I did not have a things to do list for the rest of this month and all of July.  I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a to do list.  So this list was a “places I need to purchase stuff at” list.  It is a difficult list to make because it violates one of my father’s basic principles, “assume you will not go back, and buy it when you see it.”