Friday 5 July: Stair Inn to Isle of Arran
I am woken up by the sight of the sun shining through my bedroom window. Turn on the TV and am rather amused to see that it is pouring with rain at Wimbledon. Large cooked breakfast, a good ride to Irvine, then a cycle path to Ardrossan.
Isle of Arran today. I get to the ferry port and buy a ticket that will get me to Brodick, the middle of Arran. I plan to cycle around Arran to Lochranza, in the north, where I can get another ferry back to the mainland. The ticket is called the ‘Hopscotch’! who says the Scots don’t have any sense of fun? As I wait at the ferry terminal, I have a chat to a jolly lady who lives on Arran. She tells me that she went there for a holiday twenty-five years ago, fell instantly in love with the place and stayed. Her daughter now runs a paragliding school on Arran. In what seems a quick sequence of events, I get off the ferry, find the daughter’s paragliding school and am flying over some wonderful hills. It has been a while since I flew and I was really nervous about it; I suppose I have been since I had my accident. After a very tentative start and lots of encouragement, I am in the air. It feels so good to do it again. She is a good teacher, and after a really enjoyable day she asks me if I would like to fly again the following day. I am tempted but I think if I do stay, it may leave me short of time to finish my bike ride.
I book into a B&B which is advertised as ‘very clean’. Everywhere smells of disinfectant and the landlady is wearing rubber gloves. As I am watching the sun setting over the hills, I think that maybe I can maybe spare one more day to go flying. Have supper in a pub, a venison stew with ‘vegetables of the day’. The waiter brings the stew, which smells delicious, and a plateful of chips.
Me: ‘Are these the vegetables of the day?’
Waiter: ‘Do you no want chips?’
Me: ‘I would like the vegetables of the day please.’
The waiter sighs, shakes his head and goes away. Ten minutes later he returns with a plateful of sauerkraut!
I go back to my B&B. The landlady is still wearing rubber gloves and everywhere still smells of cleaning fluids. The whole place seems unnaturally clean. The bathroom is full of notices concerning hygiene. The most memorable one declares – ‘PLEASE REPLACE TOILET SEAT AFTER EVERY USE’. (Seems a bit extreme!)
© Jim Anderson, 2025
Jim Anderson 