Road to the Isles, we'll start at the very beginning, June 20th

We have just returned from a holiday to Bute and Mull in Scotland. We drove the camper van up but collected Alan's mum from Preston and took her with us to Bute, where we had rented a cottage for a week so that she could have a bit of a break. She then caught the train back to Preston and we continued up to Mull.
The holiday started with an overnight stay near Derby so we could visit our daughter Mairi. I had picked a campsite for the night from the caravan Club's certified locations, good for a cheaper place to stay with few others for company. After a meal with Mairi we drove into the campsite mid evening through a grove of trees, each tree having a plaque. I commented that they had named all the trees but closer inspection when we stopped showed us that they were all 'in memoriam' plaques. This was confirmed by bunches of flower having been placed by some of them! We were the only people staying there that night and it certainly felt a bit weird, but dead quiet.
There were proper pitches with electricity and water, so it was no wild camp. Curiously enough there was even a barbecue, ehmm.



The next day we drove up to Preston where we stayed overnight before continuing to Bute, catching the ferry across from Wemyss bay to Rothesay. Bute lies in the Clyde estuary so it is not too much of a stretch to get there. Alan and his family used to holiday there a lot when he was a child so it holds many memories for his mum, and I have seen pictures of the children paddling with their shorts and woolly jumpers buttoned up against the cold.
On the way I took a couple of snaps going through Derbyshire and one after we had arrived at Kilchattan Bay where our cottage was. We also stopped for lunch at the Roaches in the Peak District where I took a number of infrared photographs but I will leave these for another day.






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