3 July – Oban

Today the sun shone!!!  We hung around the apartment dealing with getting the tire repaired in the morning.  Walked up to the Giving Tree coffee shop and spent a very amiable hour chatting with the owner (who lives in Dubai and comes here in the summer), a gentleman from California who was born here and has now moved back, and a couple on vacation from Devonshire, England.  The coffee shop owner has a book in which visitors record an “I am famous for” story… so Kathy wrote about her relative Sir Thomas Leigh.

Our lodging is right-hand door... small but nice.

Flowers nearby

The car repair service showed up and couldn’t do anything… through his advice, however, we connected with a shop in Oban which sold us and installed a new tire in fifteen minutes.  Hopefully we’ll collect on that through our credit card insurance when back in the US, but for now the episode is finished.

While waiting for the car (we thought it would take an hour), Dan walked the main street of Oban, where we had strolled in 2008.  I found the Oban distillery, and had a taste of the Oban Distillery edition, a nice 14 year old (available in the US) augmented by nine months in a sherry cask (not available).  It was very good.

Oban Distillery has been around for a while!

There were three or four boys playing bagpipes at different spots along the street.  I was surprised (and glad!) that youngsters were learning to play.

After the car was finished we drove to the Fish & Chips restaurant we’d visited three times in 2008.  It is still in the same place, across from the Oxfam Charity shop (bought a book), and the fish and mushy peas are still delicious!  They serve huge pieces of haddock on a pile of chips.  They also serve Illy Coffee, which may be where we had our introduction to that excellent coffee.

Then back home for a nap and a long walk by Dan in the 60 degree weather (warmest day for us).  Walked up the road behind our place about a mile… beautiful views over the water as well as back at the bigger hills.  Fox glove and Fuchsia growing along the road.  Fuchsia like a tree and Foxglove sometimes taller than Dan.  In some places we’ve driven, the Foxglove covers a whole embankment with lovely purple flowers.  I picked some for our window.