The Mantis

Reminds me of the Crocodile Rock at Millport but I haven't got a photo. Must admit I had to look this up as I'd never heard of it. But it led me to a blog The Perimeter about a man who's walking the coastline of Great Britain so every day's a school day. I'll not reveal it in case anybody else wants a guess.

So if your figures are right the timothys only need about £5.4m to break even. Hope we tell them to do one.

Lochinver Pie Shop

Just a place famous for their pies. That’s a fruit one, maybe apple and blueberry, can’t remember. Yours is Bla Bheinn from around Torrin. Climbed it on a warm May weekend in 1989 and had a dip in a pool, happy days.

Loch Seaforth and a nice wee saltire in SY last summer.

? Never actually heard that one before, been going over to Lewis over 40 years. Muirneag is a hill in Ness. The Suilven had a small lobby in front of the cafeteria where the toilets were, plus a few seats for those feeling a wee bit delicate. One time at Easter I was on my way over and went in for a leak. Lucky there were urinals as both cubicles were occupied by guys spewing up. I went back out and got chatting to an elderly couple using the seats. The man looked into the toilets occasionally to ask one of the spewers if he was OK. They asked what I was doing and I said I was going over to see Peigi-the-dragon aka the mother in law for a week. When I asked how long they were staying they said they had only got day returns ? So the guy spewing was going to spend 7 1/2 hours without even going ashore...

The Cromarty Rose, can't remember where but looks like Cromarty funnily enough ? Scanned from a slide so pre 2000. Edit - Cromarty 1996

Time to get this underway again. Definitely not the TCS pies ?

Got last week’s lotto numbers Jack my boy? ? ?

Like you I was at all six, and also sitting in the company of the Stonehaven ICT has made a few disasters a bit more palatable. The absolute moment of the decade for me is Raven’s goal. It narrowly pipped Richie Foran’s last minute overhead kick... Watching the highlights, when the ball hits the net you can hear somebody yell “yes!” Possibly Shinnie or Raven or Christie, who knows, but the hairs on the back of the neck stick up every time.

Cheers Dougal, every day’s a school day ? Never watched any of those Star Wars things in my life.

Another easy one...

They still speak quite fondly of the Isle of Lewis (1995-2014). When I started going in 77 as a young man, it was the Suilven (1974-1995) which took 3 3/4 hours. Now it's the Loch Seaforth, German-built, which I think is great, but it seems to be fashionable for the Leodhasachs to slag it off. That famous bringer of joy, Brian Wilson, who lives there and whose wife comes from Lewis, started the moaning of course, as it was built on the SNP's watch, and did lots of nit-picking, but mainly because they went with only one boat instead of a separate freight vessel. But they now do up to 3 runs per day, although that doesn't leave much room for error. Anyway, the Suilven. She was a terrible sea boat as she was bought off the peg from Norway. She was a twin and was intended for the fjords. Kind of flat-bottomed I think. Wonder who Brian Wilson can blame for that. She had berths, which I used only once, from Stornoway. They roused you at 6am or whatever to put your car aboard which kind of defeated the purpose. She was fitted later with stabilisers which didn't half bang in a swell. She went to the Cook Strait and later was sold to Suva in Fiji where she sank in 2015, thankfully with no casualties. I only seem to have one photo, for all the times I travelled, and it's not a very good one. Here she is, stern-in at Ullapool (it's always bow-in at Stornoway).

No, I’m guessing that was for freight. First went to Shetland in 1980 on the St Clair but I see there have been 5 of them.

Stornoway herring girl ?

And it still fits you.

Waiting for IBM to finish his Xmas pudding so here's another:

Kerrera Ferry at Oban, 2007.

@IBM your Seil bridge photo got me looking through my hard drive as I was there ages ago. I discovered it was October 2002, we had a few days in Oban and I haven't looked at the photos since, taken with my first digital camera which was 3Mp. Before that I was using Kodachrome and having to scan everything for the web. The first pic is Luing from Seil and the other one is looking back.

It would have been what I call an Unst pee.

Another bridge:

Here's the Mannie and Loch Fleet. It was blowing a hoolie and I forgot to pee on him.

Looks like Seil but the buildings must have changed a lot.

Yes, Maid of Glencoul in 1978. Looks like Corran Ferry looking over to Ardgour.