Road trip time

As we were going to be waiting around a week for delivery of the new inverters from Holland, we decided to hire a tiny car and do a little exploring. 8 days rental for £46 seemed OK even if the car was a breathless Hyundai I10.

Were did we "burn" it to? Well, first of all the nearby John Deere dealer for some oil and a spare multi-V drivebelt. Why? Well, the captain had a moment of madness and decided to replace the belt that drives the main alternator and waterpump as it is around 6 years old now. We had a spare, this new one will become our spare. Job is still to be done - something for a nice wet gloomy day so it should not be long before it is completed....

We were invited to visit Sheila and Niall in their lovely Portavadie house. So, a most excellent time was had seeing them, their daughter and son-in-law and the 3 hounds. For the animal lovers, here is Malta, a 14 year old who still does well and just loves her cuddles:

Penny is not quite as manic as when we first met her but still very lively:

As you can see from the one eyed picture, she does not sit still for long. Scout (their daughter's dog) is a little easier to photograph:

and, like the others, dead cute. Ruth, the daughter is quite an artist. We loved her painting of the typical Scottish "hairy coo":

Departing Portavadie we headed across country to Dundee. Again there is a why question.... When we lived in Edinburgh, many many moons ago and the captain had to visit Dundee for work, it was a bit of a tip. Actually, it was a lot of a tip. We'd heard that the waterfront area had been transformed and that the new V and A gallery was excellent. So, we went and our informants were dead right. The V and A building is quite something:

and with Discovery next to her, quite a centrepiece for the waterside:

If you don't know her history, see Wikipedia. If you can't be bothered to click on the link, then you don't deserve to know. Dundee is also famous as the home of comics like the Beano, Dandy and some Scottish specialities "The Broons" and "Oor Wullie". Again, if you vaguely curious, see Wikipedia. The offices have that old style grandeur about them:

and you can tell that they were setup in  a bygone age when folks posted things using paper not on line:

In line with the recent rush to make plastic models of things and ask various people to paint them, Ooor Wullie was all over Dundee in various colour schemes:

This one was designed to mimic the dazzle camouflage used by World War 1 ships. Some of the local sights were amusing and sad in equal measure. Here is one that seems to be such a mismatched couple physically but they held hands wandering along :

She really was nearly as wide as tall. The delights of Irn Bru, sweeties and fish suppers perhaps? The central area had an homage to Patrick in place just for us:

The dock area had more oil / gas rigs alongside than ships:

and one very sad and decaying old naval ship:

The cover they put over her is a little less than elegant.

Again for old times sake, we visited nearby Perth. Where Dundee had dragged itself upwards, Perth seemed to be in  a death spiral and was nowhere near as outwardly affluent as we remember it. We did enjoy the museum though, apparently the oldest one in the country? Strange to have the oldest museum... You briefly met John Crockatt in here a few times and we saw some nice historical records of his old company:

A few buildings still had the "wow" factor and a few were seemingly well guarded:

That is a hotel, no idea what they are guarding against, perhaps more English invaders? On the way back from a great few days, we went via East Kilbride. No, nothing exciting to see there at all but it does house the local Victron dealer. We kind of filled up the I10 and blunted its already marginal performance by loading in two inverters and then headed back to the boat. In this anniversary of the moon landing year, we felt a little like "The Eagle has landed" as we heaved the new ones on board:

The fun starts soon.