Dulwich Picture Gallery: Ravilious exhibition

Dulwich Picture Gallery

I had already had a long morning run around the well kept and busy Brockwell and Dulwich parks and after a morning coffee, we headed back to Dulwich to walk around the park before heading to the restaurant at the Picture Gallery. There is a good restaurant outside the gallery and it was sunny enough to eat outside for the first time this year. We managed to negotiate a table outside for a celebration lunch on our wedding anniversary. The gallery is famous for its roof which inspired the shape of the British telephone box although the GPO forgot to put the urns on the telephone boxes.

There was an exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery of watercolours by Edward Ravilious. They were of contemporary scenes in the 1930's and then of the naval war.  We spent much of the afternoon enjoying Ravilious's unique take on contemporary life. His astonishingly prolific career spanned peace and war but he died at the age of 39. At the outbreak of World War II Ravilious was assigned to the Royal Navy as one of the first Official War Artists. It was an inspired choice of artist to capture and preserve the images of wartime.

Over 80 watercolours were on display - including famous works like Train Landscape, Leaving Scapa Flow and White Horse and Train - as well as rarely seen works from private collections. It provided a chronological look at his work between the mid-1920s and his death in 1942. He had been inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock but Ravilious' images rarely contain figures. It was the fascination with ships and trains and his strange perspectives that captured my imagination. Ravilious is considered to be largely responsible for the revival of English watercolour painting and the evidence was here in abundance.

Leaving Scapa Flow

Train Landscape

White Horse and Train

We returned to collect our granddaughter and enjoyed her amazing physical dexterity as she scooted along the pavement and played on the play park equipment. 12 months ago she was learning to walk now she had a sense of balance and motor skills that we could only dream about.  We were also staggered by the daily assimilation of vocabulary. She even told me I was a dinosaur and knew she could get away with it.

Last year at this time she was learning to walk

Vanquishing the Wembley Wobbles: PNE promotion

May 24, 2015. Play off Final: PNE v Swindon Town

Lugubrious Lawro gives away his sponsored drink

The line ups

Manager in excelsis celebrates third goal

Team spirit was indubitable 

Nathan Byrne of Swindon, the best player on the park

Beckford, 4 - 0

The Wembley arch complete with Middlesborough kit buried in the steelwork

Well that was a surprise, I have attended a cup final and a couple of play off finals at Wembley and the Millennium stadium over the last 50 years and never seen Preston North End win. I was in London on the weekend of the Division 1 play off final and, after failing to get a ticket from Deepdale because the post would not arrive in time, I decided to take a risk and go Wembley in the hope of buying a ticket and, if not, maybe finding someone with a spare ticket to sell. It worked perfectly. I was able to buy a good seat with a 50% discount for being a pensioner. I have never had such a good seat just a couple of rows in front of Mark Lawrenson, who proved his genuine credentials by sitting with the Preston punters rather than along with the pundits.

There was an expectancy that this might be the occasion when PNE broke their duck of failing in 9 consecutive play offs since they were introduced in 1987. Simon Grayson, the manager, has a good track record of winning play off finals with his previous clubs and seemed to have created a strong team ethos. It was my first visit to the new Wembley and I was quite impressed with the stadium and the organisation of the event. The only downside was the paucity of decent beers, Carlsberg seem to have that wrapped up that franchise with Coca Cola and Walker's crisps completing the stranglehold over captive supporters. It was not hard to resist these blandishments before the start of the game.

I had a seat next to a Chelsea hospital veteran, resplendent in his bright red coat. It made me nervous that the cameras may pick him out as a part of the crowd backdrop for TV. He had lived in Preston until a year ago but qualified as a Chelsea pensioner by virtue of his army background and lack of dependent family. He told me that the hospital was a great institution that treated him like minor royalty and gained him access to all the big events in London from the flower show to trooping the colour and VE day celebrations. His knowledge of football was encyclopaedic and he even had the temerity to instruct the youthful drunken fans in front of us to sit down. " We're just singing" they retorted, at which he told them "I can hear that but I can see bugger all".

Preston were the more clinical team with a tight discipline and robust defence. After eleven minutes we were two up and 'going up' according to the massed Preston fans. They were pogo dancing and chanting whilst the Swindon's fans, like their team, seemed demoralised. Nevertheless their winger Nathan Byrne was the best player on the park. At half-time and 3 - 0 up, the atmosphere was electric in the concourse. I treated myself to a beer when I found a real ale bar that sold Marston's IPA and I soaked up the sheer exuberance of the North End supporters whilst seeking out my nephew.

When Beckford scored his third and Preston's fourth goal halfway through the second half it was all over bar the shouting/singing/dancing/clapping/drinking. I have not known the Preston fans to be so animated since Tom Finney retired in 1960. And with every reason, it was not just a deserved victory but the highest winning margin since the play offs began.

I was amused that Swindon Town were sponsored by 'Imagine Cruising', a Swindon based tour operator. I suspect most Swindon fans must have wished they had gone cruising instead of travelling to Wembley. Meanwhile Preston were sponsored by Virgin Trains and on the day of the final they were unable to offer any Virgin Trains owing to track works they claimed. It confirmed my long held belief that corporate sponsorship is a form of customer abuse.

Fair weather fan

Bicester Village

Back in the early 1970's, I lived close to Bicester when it was a rather tawdry town close to the Upper Heyford American airforce base, home to the F111 fighters. There was a folk club in a local Bicester hotel and it became our Sunday night haunt, entry was by a pair of Levis and an Aran sweater. Fortunately I was more interested in being a wild rover than singing it so I upped sticks from the flat landscapes of Oxfordshire and headed for Glasgow and the mountains.

We were driving down the M40 to spend a week in London and needing a break after 6 hours on the road so I suggested dropping in to Bicester Village. It was only 3 miles from the motorway and surely not as dire as the franchised food and drink outlets that litter the motorways. The traffic to Bicester village was like the bank holiday traffic to Blackpool in the 1960's and finding a parking space amidst the sea of Mercs, Range Rovers and BMWs was an exercise in patience, a quality that has always eluded me. I could have gone for valet parking but as someone who has yet to travel first-class by either train or plane, this was a non starter. I did a couple of laps of the car park until a space was vacated between two large 4x4s. The sort of space that makes you wish you had teflon coated doors but ensures that you do not stay long fearful of the damage done by the occupants of the adjacent vehicles..

We entered the village that consisted of over 130 high end retail outlets fitted out in wooden shops in a setting that could have been a Pinewood stage setting for a wild west town. We were engulfed by numerous bevies of well-heeled fashion shoppers, groups of foreign tourists and casually dressed aspiring families. No matter which group they belonged to they all seemed to be carrying half a dozen bags exhibiting designer labels as a symbol of their extravagance. Bicester Village outlet shopping centre has the highest rental of any comparable shopping centre in the UK and attracts over 6 million visitors a year. An hour later and having bought a shirt and a bag we bought two ice creams for £8 and scooted out before the 4x4 wagons began to roll.

It had been a useful reminder of the beauty of internet shopping. Why would anyone want to spend an afternoon or waste a day being ripped off by retail operators who specialise in mark-ups that are an insult to both the workforce who manufacture the products and the aspirational shoppers who are duped into buying them? I'd rather go back to my Aran sweater than return to Bicester village.

Aran sweater, a 1970's alternative to Bicester village

Moruisg: a suitable epitaph

Moruisg, the way up is not that inspiring

Nearly there

The ex Munro - Sgurr nan Ceannaichean

Moruisg - end of an era - note the colour coordination

Moruisg summit

Glen Cannoch and the Torridons

Friday, 15 May 2015
Ascent:      795 metres
Distance:   7 kilometres
Time:         2 hours 46 minutes

m   Moruisg      928m   1hr  34mins

The final day of the excursion to Torridon was limited by Mark having to meet a friend in Fort William in the late afternoon, the incoming weather system and my sore hip following the descent of the Horns of Alligin. We had intended to climb Slioch but the skies were grey and I was unsure whether it would be wise to subject my hip to more jarring on the descent, and besides Slioch deserves a good day.

My fallback was Moruisg in Glen Carron, just half an hour away and capable of being climbed before noon when the rains were due. I knew that Mark would fall for it because my threatened alternative was Fionn Bheinn which is the mountain equivalent of a tub of lard. Nevertheless, I was amused at what would possibly be Mark's last Munro being such a mundane hill and with rain imminent, a suitable epitaph for days like this on the Scottish hills. They are far more typical than the wonderful mountains and clement weather of the last two days.

We parked on the A890 crossed the river and railway and began the slog through the bogs. There was a faint footpath and the slope began to steepen at an altitude of 400 metres. We were ratcheting our way up when we came across a walker who had had to give up; he had succumbed to the steep slopes and feared that he would damage himself if he continued. He was diabetic and he asked if we could watch him descend to the safety of the flatter ground. We were at about 500 metres and it gave some respite from the climb. Then just the drudgery of climbing a hill that lacks any noticeable feature, unlike its near neighbour Sgurr nan Ceannaichean, which has real mountain qualities but has recently been deleted from the Munro list following a resurvey of its height. This negates the need to tramp across the undulating ridge between the two hills, which to be fair is a splendid walk.

We arrived at the summit, Mark wishing and hoping that this would not be his last Munro before emigrating. We had captured the full extremes of Scottish mountains in the past few days: the magnificence of Liathach and Beinn Alligin and the insignificance of Moruisg. I returned down the grass and heather slopes to avoid further strain on my hip. It was steep but the ground was soft and there was no pain. I made good time and I would be down before the rains started.

I met an enthusiastic couple from Edinburgh who were beginning the climb as I neared the end of the descent. They too had had a great day yesterday on Luirg Mhor and Bidein a' Choire Sheasgaich and we took some solace from the delights of yesterday and the knowledge that hills like Moruisg just have to be persevered on days like this. If anything they act as reminders of how good are mountains such as those in the Torridons.

Mark had decided to follow the high-level ridge across to Sgurr nan Ceannaichean, the Munro that is no longer. It took him an extra hour and ensured that he arrived back in the rain, a suitable nemesis for the two glorious days in Torridon. We returned to Fort William to meet Mark's long-time climbing friend who had driven up for the weekend. They had two days in the rain and wind to look forward to whilst I had a leisurely drive home spinning it out so I could listen to the news quiz. After a soak in the bath, there was a meal fit for someone who had completed three consecutive days in the hills.

Beinn Alligin

The Horns, Beinn Dearg and Beinn Eighe from Sgurr Mhor

Cuillin ridge on Skye in distance from Tom na Gruagaich

Eagle passes over Tom na Gruagaich

Tom na Gruagaich

The Horns and Slioch in the centre behind

Liathach from Tom na Gruagaich (Beinn Alligin)

Baosbheinn from Sgurr Mhor (Beinn Alligin)

Descending to the Horns of Alligin

Beinn Dearg from the Horns of Alligin

Looking back to Sgurr Mhor on the walkout

Head of Loch Torridon looking to the Corrie Lair Munros

Thursday, 14 May 2015
Ascent:       1140 metres
Distance:    11 kilometres
Time:          5 hours 38 minutes

m       Tom na Gruagaich    922m    1hr  46mins
m       Sgurr Mhor               986m    2hrs  50mins

Beinn Alligin is the third of the great triptych of Torridon hills along with Liathach and Beinn Eighe. It sits overlooking Loch Torridon with views to Skye and the Applecross hills as well as providing a superb balcony to observe Liathach and Beinn Eighe. Mark had selected Beinn Alligin as the second mountain after Liathach yesterday that he wished to climb on this short farewell tour to the Torridons before he moved south to the Lakes. We were blessed with near-perfect weather: clear blue skies, a gentle cooling breeze and excellent visibility. We parked by the bridge near Torridon House and decided to climb the hill in a clockwise direction: Tom na Gruagaich first, then Sgurr Mhor and thereafter the Horns of Alligin.

On all my previous visits I had climbed the mountain in the other direction and always after a walk earlier in the day on Slioch, Maol Chean-Dearg, Beinn Eighe and Fhion Bheinn respectively. We had also pondered about climbing Beinn Dearg, the magnificent adjacent Corbett, but decided early on the ascent that this was a day to savour a relaxing saunter around Beinn Alligin.  The thought of climbing the murderous slopes of Beinn Dearg in the heat of the afternoon would ruin the day.

Although a fairly steep ascent, it was no problem to tackle the much-improved path to Tom na Gruagaich to start the day. We began less vigorously than on Liathach the day before and found an easy rhythm passing a couple with three well-trained collies and then coming across two pathmakers from the National Trust. They were repositioning giant slabs that had slipped down the slope in the winter rains. On a day like today, it seems like a perfect job but they had to slog up the hill for an hour with spades and crowbars before starting work. We chatted to them about their work, they covered all the National Trust mountains in Glencoe, Glen Shiel and the Torridons with a team of four. They worked with easy grace, the woman extracting the displaced rocks and the man levering the sandstone blocks into place.

We continued the climb alongside a rushing, gurgling burn and passed the last patch of winter snow just below the flatter summit plateau. We walked out to Meall an Laoigh, an 893m cairn that gives a wonderful viewpoint over to the Applecross hills, Skye and the Sound of Raasay. It was an easy walk over the loose scree and grass to the impressive cairn of Tom na Gruagaich. Days like this do not occur very often on the Scottish hills so we soaked in the views and chatted to other couples as they arrived at the summit.

The walk around to Sgurr Mhor involves a steepish descent over loose scree and rocks and then an ascent over an intermediate top before arriving at the airy summit just after the cleft in the rock that gives such a distinctive profile to Sgurr Mhor. It was time for lunch and then some photographing the surrounding hills. The Corbett of Baosbheinn across Loch a' Bhealaich was especially impressive, as were the views of the Horns of Alligin and Beinn Dearg to the east.

There is a steep descent of 200 metres from the summit to the start of the Horns of Alligin. We met a couple of older walkers from Stratford on Avon who were sweating their way up. We had plenty of time but we decided to undercut the Horns, we had both traversed them on several previous excursions. We continued to the end of this path before starting the very steep descent down the southeast face of the horns. The constant jarring from jumping down rocks was hard on my hip, which I had injured running earlier in the week, and on the walkout along the well-made path my limp became noticeably worse, it was no good complaining, Mark normally waits for no one on the hills. But he did as we crossed the raging burn that cascades down Coire Mhic Nobail and then strolled through the beautiful but short copse of native forest to return to the car park. It was still only 4 p.m. and we still had the sheer pleasure of driving past Loch Torridon and then up the Glen to Kinlochewe. By 5 p.m. I had a pint of Orkney beer in hand at the Kinlochewe Hotel bar and my sore hip had slipped my memory.

Liathach

Liathach was my last Munro on my first round and it remains my favourite mountain. Even in the magnificent Torridonian mountainscapes, it stands out as the leader of the pack. Shaped like an upturned boat with a sharp prow, its profile is given even more prominence by the encircling bands of old red sandstone giving it an armoured appearance with its quartzite summit acting as a lighthouse. One of my regular walking companions of the last twelve years was about to migrate from Scotland after 25 years. He had climbed 3031 Munros in this time and wished to enjoy his final few days on the best of Scottish hills.  He knows the Scottish mountains intimately so his choice was not surprising: the Torridons.

Liathach from Beinn Alligin

Spidean a' Choire Leith and the Pinnacles from the north

Heading down from Spidean to the Pinnacles

The Pinnacles

On the Pinnacles

Loch Torridon and Mullach an Rathain from the Pinnacles

Looking back to Spidean from Mullach an Rathain

Ben Alligin and Beinn Dearg on the descent from Mullach an Rathain

Mullach an Rathain from the north

The Pinnacles from the north

Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Ascent:        1350 metres
Distance:     16 kilometres
Time:           6 hours 53 minutes

t        Stob a' Choire Liath Mhor      960m      2hrs   5mins
m      Spidean a' Choire Leith         1055m     2hrs 33mins
m      Mullach an Rathain                1023m    3hrs  47mins

It was grey and cold as I left home at 7am, picking up Mark in Callander and then taking the scenic route via Killin, Kinloch Rannoch and Trinafour to reach the A9 north of Blair Atholl. We made no allowance for stops, the objective was clear and after taking the A832 to Kinlochewe we arrived at the Glen Torridon car park south of the steep path up Liathach at 11:35am. It was still grey and cold and I set out with a hat and gloves to climb Liathach (the grey one) in matching conditions. The path is merciless, nowhere else do you gain such a big height in such a short distance. A lone woman walker was descending, she had returned to Scotland from Canada after the death of her parents and was revisiting Liathach in their memory. She told me that she had first been taken up Liathach by her parents and felt she was saying farewell to them as she had walked along the ridge.

Liathach has this effect on people, it has a magnetic allure and spiritual quality. I feel the same, at the end of my first round, we had climbed Beinn Eighe in the morning and a golden eagle had flown past as if saluting us on completing the Munro round just before we started the scramble up the Coire Dubh Beag gulley on dangerously loose scree. I was passed a bottle of Greenmantle ale by my hill-running partner on the final summit of Mullach an Rathain. But the tops were immersed in the cloud and we had miscalculated our position. As we began what we thought was the descent the slopes continued upwards again and we reached the true summit. Sadly we had no more beer with us.

Today I toiled towards the top of the climb to the bealach at 833 metres, it had taken half an hour longer than my last visit in 2007, although I had had a long chat with the woman descending. The eastern top of Stuc a' Choire Dubh Bhig had been climbed on three previous occasions so I felt no compulsion to go out in that direction again. Instead, we just followed the beautiful curving grass ridge towards Stob a' Choire Liath Mhor where we met a couple from Glencoe and their dog, Molly. Later in the day, we met them again in the Whistle Stop Cafe and I asked them how was Hamish MacInnes faring. It turned out that he was their neighbour and although now 86 he is still designing mountain rescue equipment, he is a true legend in world mountaineering.

We continued to the unmistakable summit of Spidean a' Choire Leith, the pile of quartzite blocks scored by crampon marks that provide a scramble to the summit were gleaming in the rays of early afternoon sun. We had time on our side and it was getting warmer so we enjoyed the high point of Scotland's finest mountain before finding our way down the blocks of quartzite, it always seems harder to descend the blocks than to climb them. We were at the start of the Pinnacles and decided to take the path that skirts below them. Mark had had a bad fall here many years ago, it is narrow and exposed in places, possibly more so than traversing the pinnacles. Then there was just the steady climb to the second Munro, Mullach nan Raithan. I spotted the false summit where I had drunk beer twenty years ago.  Again we had time to relax on the summit whilst we scanned the horizon for familiar mountains and retold stories from the hundreds of days we had spent exploring them.

We took another break and then Mark decided that he would like to descend and walk under the northern corries. It would have been a lot quicker to descend directly to the Glen Torridon road from Mullach but the skies had been clearing and the spectacular northern skyline of Liathach would be a suitable reward. We took a dogleg to the north and then east as we negotiated the slopes down to Loch Grobaig. It is a long haul over heather, bog and the occasional section of scree and it seemed longer than when we had taken this same route during our last visit on our way to climb Beinn Eighe. This time with only half a day for the walk we had a 9-kilometre trek back to the road to recover the car.

We were down for 7pm and in time to find the excellent Whistle Stop Cafe@Kinlochewe still open. The homemade venison pie was the perfect accompaniment to the adventure on Liathach but you had to take your own beer or wine to the cafe. I was not prepared for this and the local shop had closed so Dandelion and Burdock seemed a good alternative. It brought back memories of childhood although the cost was more than fifty times what it was in the 1950's when it was sold at 11d with a sustainable 3d for recycling the bottle. That was my main source of pocket money as a young boy and I reflected that it had probably helped inculcate a lifetime habit of recycling!

After the votes came in

And so it came to pass that the polls were wrong, not about the Tory vote or the Lib Dem or UKIP vote. Quite simply the Labour voters did not come out on the day according to Ben Page of Ipsos Mori. This may have been because they were uninspired or lazy; unlike the Tories who were reticent about their voting preference and because the prospect of being dependent on SNP MPs did not play well in England. The fall out for the Lib Dems and Labour has been catastrophic and it will take many months before they can operate as effective opposition parties. By that time the new government may have run away with the spoon.

Already Murdoch is demanding a lesser role for the BBC and John Whittingdale has been asked to oversee the license review. I have no problem with a BBC license fee of £145 per annum, after all it is only a third of what I would have to pay to watch Sky at £432 per annum. What's more I get a goto website and a handful of excellent radio stations, all free of adverts. The BBC would be good value at £5 a week and far better value than Sky at £500 per annum.

The £12bn of benefit cuts have been entrusted to Duncan Smith, a man who was found to have broken the Code of Practice for Official Statistics for twisting figures to support government policies, and whose own cv was a discovered to be a work of fiction. The great Europe debate will dominate the airwaves over the next two years during which time we will lose even more influence in Europe and on the world stage, although PM's usually begin to find their international feet during a second term. Meanwhile schools and other public services will continue to be handed over to the private companies that contribute to Conservative funds.  And that goes for the NHS too where Jeremy Hunt has been allowed to continue his baleful influence. Justice is entrusted to Michael Gove, which should ensure some rough outcomes.

No doubt we will get a third runway at Heathrow making it an even more miserable experience and HS2 will gobble up capital spending. Birmingham to London will be 45% quicker, ideal for London commuters, but if HS? ever extends to Glasgow it will be just 12% quicker, which seems to defeat the purpose of the project. Most of the investment will be in the south east and then there is Crossrail 2 demanding funding and with Boris in the cabinet you would not bet against this taking most of the remainder of rail capital investment. All pretence of creating social housing will be transferred to the private sector with incentives to buy. Meanwhile pensioners will be protected and allowed to avoid inheritance tax below £1m.

The Scottish Government will be given a further tranche of fiscal autonomy but probably at the cost of dispensing with the Barnett formula. Along with the loss of oil revenues and with plummeting whisky sales this will call for some creative alternative revenue raising schemes from the Scottish Government and they will not be able to blame Westminster when things go wrong.

Any chance of a written constitution or reform of the House of Lords is unlikely, although parliamentary seats will be redistributed and reduced to 600 constituencies giving a sizeable advantage to the Conservatives. The probability of introducing proper press regulation along the lines of Leveson will be ditched. There will a further sell off of British companies and the Chinese will probably end up building and financing new nuclear power stations. Wind turbines and other green energy sources will be slowed down and left to market forces, despite the urgency of addressing climate change.

And finally local services will be even further downsized along with the minister, Eric Pickles. Localism will be no more evident than the Big Society was after the last election. Perhaps we should remember that this was achieved by the conservatives picking up votes from just 24% of the electorate. The so called progressive parties, including the Lib Dems, now that Nick Clegg has resigned, may have gathered more than half of the votes but that does not matter in the first past the post lottery that has delivered another Cameron led government. The sooner the UK adopts a fairer voting system the better for ensuring a more fair and egalitarian society that is tuned into the rest of the world.

Colonsay

Scarasaig on arrival

Paps of Jura from Oronsay

Priory at Oronsay

Peacocks strutting with peahen at Oronsay

Colonsay hotel

Balnahard beach

Kiloran Beach

Jura from Carnan Eoin, the highest point on Colonsay

Kiloran Bay from Carnan Eoin

Colonsay House

Blue stripes and infinity pool

 This is our "secret beach" said the man in the pub

Secret beach

A beach to ourselves

Over the strand with Jura in background

Colonsay is one of those islands that evoke positive memories: the soft sea air, cuckoos competing with corncrakes for air time and the only consumer goods on sale are home-knitted. Many years ago we had a family holiday on Colonsay and were blessed with several days of fine weather. We spent most days on the beach at Kiloran and enjoyed exhilarating cycle rides to all other parts of the island on the less sunny days. We returned at the end of last week for 3 nights and 4 days made possible by the early morning and late evening ferry crossings by Calmac. The portents were not good with high winds and rain predicted before we left. We arrived in Oban on a dull grey general election morning and ran into four old friends at the ferry terminal. The journey across passed in no time as we caught up on the past thirty years, ate bacon rolls, talked politics, and lamented the negative vibes of the general election campaign. There was no great optimism about the outcome under a first past the post electoral system that heavily favoured the Conservative Party.

We had booked a room at the hotel with a voucher that was a Christmas present. We dumped our luggage and we were ready for action before noon. We hired some bikes from a local called Archie, mine was at least twenty five years old, and set off for Oronsay, the island that is attached to Colonsay at low tide. It took half an hour to cycle down the road to the Strand, the tidal flats that separate the two islands. We dumped the bikes on the shore and began the walk over the shallow film of sea as the tide was receding. It took half hour to cross to Oronsay and, although we had wet feet, it felt a suitable sacrifice for the joy of reaching Oronsay on foot. Last time with three under tens to protect we had hitched a lift across the Strand on a tractor and trailer.

It is 3-kilometre walk from the Strand to the priory on Oronsay, the track curves around the rock outcrops and provides excellent views across to the Paps of Jura. The fields were full of spring lambs and the skies echoed to the sound of lapwings. We lunched in the priory grounds and watched three peacocks strutting their stuff around a peahen. We had to leave sooner than we would have liked so we could beat the incoming tide. There is about a four-hour window to cross and return across the Strand but we had started an hour later than would have been possible. We cycled back to Scalasaig feeling pleased to have reached Oronsay, freewheeling at speed to the pier where we celebrated with a cake in the Pantry, a cafe that was run by a women's co-operative on our last visit but now seems to be privately owned and has lost its ambience. The day had turned from a wet cold grey day on the mainland when leaving home at 6am to a bright spring day on Colonsay. Holidays are meant to be like this.

In the evening we met our friends for drinks and entered the pub quiz before watching the exit poll predictions. They generated heated debate with previously passionate socialists no longer certain of their political allegiance and having a general disdain for the three main parties. For the first time since 1983, I was not involved in the running of the general election so I retired to bed before midnight.

The next day promised more dry weather but the cloud cover remained for much of the morning as we cycled to Port Mor and then along to Kiloran Bay. We stopped at the excellent unmanned Heritage Centre with an open door that locked you in if it blew shut. We walked the length of the beach at Kiloran Bay and I climbed Carnan Eoin, the highest point of the island to capture some photos. We visited Colonsay House for afternoon tea and to recollect our previous stay with the children in a flat in the house. On the cycle back we ran into various folk whom we had met in the bar last night. We had a raucous meal with our friends, eating and drinking more than normal as we were carried along by the extravagance of the group. An 'A' list actress arrived for a meal in the hotel much to the delight of one of our friends.

Much to our surprise, the next day dawned bright and improved as the day progressed. We cycled down to the Strand and walked from Garvard over to the next bay and then to the raised beaches of Ardskenish. We had some lunch on the highest point and on the return found an exquisite beach, all white shell sand with the azure seas lapping the rock bands as the tide retreated and the seals lolled into the water as we passed. The locals later told us that this is their secret beach but we had it to ourselves. We sat and listened to the oyster catchers and I had a snooze on the sand dunes before heading back. The tide was out so we were able to take a short cut over the tidal sands. They were rippled by the outgoing waves and pockmarked by worm casts. The cycle back gave us the chance to work up a thirst that was quenched as we sat in the hotel garden enjoying the warm late afternoon sunshine. Our day was made complete when mussels and then fresh halibut were on offer for the evening meal. This had been a 'given day' as they say in Shetland.

True to the forecast, Sunday arrived with a strong breeze and rain. We decided to ditch the bikes and walked across the island. We rescued a sheep that had its fleece entangled in brambles, walked round the airstrip and visited three beaches. They looked less enticing than the day before, grey rather than golden sand and green rather than blue seas. The tide was still in and the rain began to fall as we headed back spending two hours walking in the soft island rain. We finished with an afternoon of animated conversations in the hotel lounge with fellow guests before catching the boat at 8:10pm. It was well after midnight before we arrived home after negotiating flooded roads around Loch Awe.

Colonsay remains a totally relaxing retreat with the hotel welcoming and providing good food and the focal point for the island, which has only 140 residents. This population swells in summer with the estate letting out cottages and there have been a fair number of new houses built since our last visit. It lacks the vitality and string of magnificent beaches of Coll, but we did find a perfect beach, enjoyed the company of old friends and tired ourselves out each day in the mellifluous sea air.