Tales of Home [2]

I liked the reindeer racing, that looked fun but, the cruelty shown to the deer made me feel utterly SICK ! They are wild animals & probably doing that for a reason ? Humans are SUPPOSED to be able to think clearly & rationally ??!! There must have been a better way to disengage that deer without hitting it with a fucking spade ! my initial thought was "you fucking bastards!" did the deer feel threatened in some way ? it is a MALE deer no ? I would report that to the RSPCA if that was in my country. & even IF it was ME being gored, I still wouldnt half break its neck ! or hit it with a spade, Sack them ! sack them all ! Zoo's are meant to take care of animals ! Im not moaning at you Norc, just some people PISS ME OFF, as these zoo staff have !

Yeah.  Stupid.  If for no other reason than the shovel blows only make the reindeer feel more threatened and angry. You want to try to calm those situations down, not get into an arms race.That's how people and animals end up getting killed needlessly.

That wasnt very lady like language was it, but I get angry when people do stupid things to animals !

yeah, i agree. it's a male reindeer and he's with females and calves, so ofcourse he feels threatened by humans, he tries to chase them off. and hitting it with a spade is just stupid, as David points out it just makes it more angry. no, what you should do is take the antlers and turn it as you at the same time "trip" it, then get on top of it. and reidneers should not be kept in zoos. where i live they don't even have males and females together, all males i believe, therefor they don't attack each other or humans, they have nothing to defend or fight for. 

reindeer racing looks superfun, i'de like to try it

Norc wrote:where i live they don't even have males and females together, all males i believe, therefor they don't attack each other or humans, they have nothing to defend or fight for. 
 

So you're saying that the males aren't naturally violent, it's the females that put them up to it?  Hmmmm.....

As I mentioned yesterday I was on one of the islands today- Rothesay or the Isle of Bute, depending how offical you are being. Prince Charles is Duke of Rothesay.
Sadly this wasnt a day out and I had to grab photos as I could between grafting- the grafting however ionvolved making over 300 deliveries so I did get about a bit!

It started as a normal Scottish summer day- low thick cloud a strong wind and sudden temperature fluctutations.
The way there looked like this- I had to take these out the car window as we sped by!







Due a weird quirk of geography and road planning Rothesay is very roughly south of where I live, so naturally to get there we went north!
Eventually we got to Colintraive, a small area of intensely farmed land that has rich soil.
This is the ferry from there to Rothesay, and yes that stretch of water is as short as it looks- doesnt stop the buggers charging you 21 quid to get across in a car though.



Rothesay marina- as seen from too far away!



Looking back from the island to the mainland-



This might help give you some bearings to previous stuff I have posted- if you look in the distance you will see the power station chimney I pointed out as a notable landmark when I posted the pictures of Highland Mary statue in Dunoon.



More looking back- and a nice iron cast gate for Halfy -





Something you get a lot of on Rothesay, thanks to the Gulf Stream (not that youd have noticed that today) are palm trees-



Ok enough scenery for now- probably the most striking thing about Rothesay is how rich so much of it is- a surprising amount of people live in places like this-







or this



or this



or this



or this



Fancy houses have fancy gardens too and greenhouses of weird stuff, like this-



And freaky looking trees like this-



And you dont tend to get something as common as a doorbell either-



A tree I liked in a garden-



When you have spent all morning delivering stuff to doors that are the worng end of huge drives and gardens the last thing you want to see on your delivery list is this-



And that was lunch time- rest of day to come! Including- cows, fields for David, a cute gull and a big bloody gull, oh and I get searched by police in the middle of Rothesay High Street.

I love the little insights into your world ! Ive got a friend who's family are Scottish, his father was high ranking in the army, anyway, Iain (my friend) speaks SO fondly of his younger life in Scotland, uni, countryside, his family home, etc. Il have to pick HIS brains one day...& as his like me, picking brains WONT take long ! I really enjoy looking at photo's of peoples home towns etc, its fascinating !

Thanks Azriel- glad you are enoying the pics- and my tale of an exictiting day out!

Now, where was I? Oh yes. Lunch and police!

We had lunch in a cafe- its was a lovely cafe where we met up with the ladies, got ourselves a seat and tried to order- only to discover they couldnt do bacon rolls, as they had run out of bacon, and they couldnt do sausage on a roll, as yup, they had run out of sausage- no square sausage, in a Scots cafe!   So we had to get them to fry something else instead.

This is the main town from above, where we had lunch-



And from the waterfront-



Theres a ferry terminal there too, but not one that has boats sailing to Dunoon- we get the crappy expensive Cointraive one.



So with lunch finished I discovered I had left my baccy in the car, and the person I was with, who I had only really just met that day properly, wanted to get some stuff from his car.
So we went back to where the car was parked in the main street whilst the women waited on our return.
When we got there it was too find a police car parked next to it and two young (they are getting younger cops arent they?) and very tall coppers unfolding themselves from within it.

You know how I menioned earlier it was a bit windy? Well what with making deliveries there was a lot of stopping and starting, lots of getting in and out of the car ect everywhere from the breezy shorefront to the wind swept farms on the hills.
Unfortuntely the tax disc was loose, and at some point, unnoticed by us, had been blown right out the car and was no longer there- and it was this had caught the polices eye.
So as the person I was with was the driver and I was a mere passenger I stood by whilst he gave his details, licence ect to the police, smug in the knowledge it was nothing to do with me.

The police were very nice, to start with, they told him to get a replacement, to notify our local police in Dunoon, and as we were only on the island for a day they would let him off with the ticket and we could be on our way, as soon as the checks came back giving him the all clear- then the radio crackled and they got his background check info- turned out my driver had previous for drug convictions. Nothing major, just silly stuff getting caught with bits of dope for personal use.
By the time the women came to find us we were standing in the High Street, emptying our pockets (I have pockets like Doctor Who too and warned the cop when he asked me to empty my pockts- 'that this might take a while') and then were physcally searched.
And of course, now they wanted my details too to run checks on, not helped by him pullling out a roll up from my pocket which was supsicoulsy fat (it was in my pocket as I had tried to roll in a strong wind and the result had not been good, so I had abondend smoking it and shovedin my pocket)- it did however look suspicously like a joint, even though it wsnt. Fortunetely I dont have a police record so that came back clear. And closer inspection of the rol up seemed to convince the cop it was just baccy in there.
Eventually they let us go with a lot of warnings and caveats, actually it was mainly I think because the women were staring at them in a disconcerting manner (they are good at that Scots women) and we got back to doing our job.
And that was lunch in Rothesay.

Afternoon saw us heading upwards mainly- to the houses and farms on the hills around the town-



A field! For hay I think? :scratch:Farmer Dave- any idea?



Cows- the big one was a great starer- cows are great at staring-



Also lots of little wods and copses doted about-



Sadly I always found this- a baby gull-





It was in a garden, and I have no idea where it could have come for, there was no one home to ask them to hep, and I didnt have tme to do anything for it, that and its parents were dive bombing me continually- and gulls are quite intimidating when they divebomb to protect their young! So I had to leave it to nature and fate I am afraid.

Sadly (or luckily you might be thinking) my camera was running out of batteries and I only got a few more pics- this is the main church as we made our way back towards town from behind it-



Looked like God was home (well it was a Sunday)

A piece of advice if you ever holiday in Scotland- dont eat chips on the shore front, unless you really like seagulls!



Lastly- and just for Mrs Figg- something from her youth (or is that her middle years?) - Victorian lavs! No really, I was so impressed I did something I have never een considered doing in my life- I took photos of the inside of a Gents!





And yes those are solid marble urinals- the wealth of Empire when a public bogs looked like this! If I hadnt been so bursting for a pee Id have gone elsewhere- it felt like pissing on art.

So there you go, a day that started with an expensive ferry, was punctuated by a lackof fried food and a police search, and ended in a lovely place for a pee- typical sort of day out in Scotland really all in.


ps out of all the doors I delivered to yesterday- that was the weirdest-



It was covered in quotations- all sorts- philosophers, writers, everything really from Blake and Shakespeare to Churchill.

''Lastly- and just for Mrs Figg- something from her youth (or is that her middle years?) - Victorian lavs! No really, I was so impressed I did something I have never een considered doing in my life- I took photos of the inside of a Gents!'' Petty

OI!! watch it Sunshine!

those were fascinating Petty, I really enjoyed your photos. but who are these 'ladies'??

Thanks Mrs Figg- I knew youd appreiate the Victoriana!
As to the ladies, well, um, I'll get back to you on that!

{{{{ }}}}

hmpfff!

what on earth is a baccy? also, i like how you must seem like a tourist  taking photos of everything. and what deliveries did you do? and what's a tax disc? wait... i think  i know. it's the thing you have to carry around at all times in your car?

baccy is tobacco, and the tax disc is the bit of paper stuck on your windscreen with your car insurance on it.

I hestitate to think what Petty is delivering. maybe its genetically modified haggis, or deep fried plums.

oh..ok. i think i understand

tax disc Norc

oh.. we don't have those, well we do, but not there, we have em on the plate.

You vikings and your funny ways.

We've got things both on our plates and on our windshields.  Can't be too thorough about these things.

Rothesay police certainly cant be!

I love the farms! And the plumbing!

Im back there tomorrow and will be covering more of the island, away from the main town and out into the wilds- I will try to get some good farm pics for you.

That was a fun story ! liked the photo's also. I miss the old "pull chain" loo's, Real old wooden seats, smooth as a babies bum ! That clanking sound as you pulled on the handle, Ah, the good old days

Im hoping torrow's tales will have less police in them!
This is why i dont go to the islands- if Im not back here in my barrel tomorrow night Im probably in a burning wicker effigy.

you can put one of your 'ladies' in it.

Um, actually, em, tomorrow there will be just me, and, the, um, two ladies.....