The Day After Tomorrow Delivery.

The beginning of August seems to be the watershed of the Scottish Summer, behind us now the long bright, hot days of Glasgow Fair hoi polloi and ahead the shorter days with Atlantic jetstreams firing plenty of low pressure systems at Argyll normally aimed at Spitzbergen. This is not to say we will not still revel in some fabulous days, however for every one of them we will now have to endure two wet and wild ones, as the evenings grow darker and darker. Although this is not too happy a prospect for our euro visitors seeking sun and lofty highland landscapes, it is of cousre pure El Dorado for we poor land sports providers struggling to find fishing and blamming for PGs, for wet weather brings Stags down the hillsides and Salomon up the rivers, so every cloud etc.

I hope you will forgive the long gaps between scribbles however we seem to be constantly on the move, no sooner has Mhairi cooked up a storm with "The Full Scottish" breakfast for our ad hoc guests and yours truly has shaken the previous evenings Ardbeg fumes from the Baronial bonce than we must make our excuses and hare off to visit almost everyone one could possibly think of. Recently we have stayed with one of Scotland's Celeb Chefs to be wined and dined around the Pittenweem Arts Festival although his finely tuned sense of humour fairly wound up old duffers like us, just wait for another ten years my boy and it will be your turn to suffer. We also enjoyed a wonderful visit to Colonsay, one of my favourite destinations. Despite its unbelievable mix of land and seascape I could never live in such an isolated community bedevilled with its demographic problems, however what a wonderful spot to visit. This time the Trollaigh Navy stayed in port and we sensibly caught the ferry for four days of non stop socialising, even the mutts were bemused by late nights, howling force eight gales, driving rain, then suddenly Mediterranean beach barbecues with lots of other hounds to chase and romp with. In days past the laird owned everything and with varying degrees of philanthropy looked after his flock, gradually this has changed so that many of the aforementioned flock own their own patch and view with great jealousy the progress of those who sit on their rights in public housing or dare to build, purchase and enjoy their holiday or retirement homes. One wag who should know better than to side against the blow-ins even penned a ditty lampooning the ability of some to "carpet the byre" referring to the change from a cow pat stiffened agricultural work place, to a space for reading and relaxation, one might argue that this is a significant step forward for conservation and civilisation, perhaps the lyricist would do well to look to his own family byre, bereft of an honest beast for many a year.

Hopefully after a furious blast to Aviemore for a wedding tomorrow things will settle a little and the old maintenance list can come back out of the drawer to facilitate the million chores that remain undone chez Trollaigh. A new definition appeared this week for "next day deliver". After many frustrating phone calls to track down an urgently required spare part dispatched from the home counties, a local carrier finally contacted me to say that the long awaited box would not be delivered by the next day as you or I might infer from the description on the package, but rather on the next day he happened to be passing which will be sometime next week; I suppose there is some logic in there somewhere. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.