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Sat in the sun and baked all morning and some of the afternoon. After lunch we went in to the town centre and had coffee and a beer. I saw a Canadair/Bombardier C415 seaplane. Just the same as Lil’ Dipper from Planes. You know, the one on my Tesco bag (not a bag-for-life, I have to remind you). First time I’ve seen one live. Didn’t have my camera of course, so had to hope for the best and use the iPhone. As usual, it worked quite well. Not a lot of detail, but it is a reminder to me of this event. Hoped the plane would land on the sea, but it only made a few passes then disappeared.

Went back to the hotel and as it was clouding over a bit we decided to sit on the verandah. Then the
thunder and lightning started. Took some photos of the rain and beautiful light on the hills.
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Went to see Beatles tribute at night. Brilliant! Bingo? Dire!

Cloudy and dull. Walked through the town to small beach. Just before we reached it, there was a message scratched on the wall “Smelly Beach” with an arrow pointing down to it. We went down lots of steps and understood the message. There are a lot of sewers in this area and, what looked like an sewage plant at the back of the beach. We saw lots of wee fish, but were wary of paddling, just in case there were any floating “mars bars”, given its location. Came back along cliff-top path. Thunder and rain after lunch so we stayed on balcony. Even more thunder and lightning later in the afternoon. Really heavy rain – torrential at times.

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It was warm in the morning. After breakfast I went for a swim in the pool. We were sitting next to a noisy pair who insisted on playing ’60s pop on their phone. Don’t they have headphones where they come from. Like I said, they were really noisy,but at least they were just talking. Worse was to come. Some stupids arrived and they were really noisy. Shouting and bawling and spoiling everything for everybody else. A couple of them dived in and all the water from the pool vanished. Just as well, really as the hotel would have needed to replace the filters after they left. Some folk shouldn’t be allowed to go on holiday.

After lunch it got cloudy and there were a few spots of rain. We went for a walk over to the beach.

We went in to town at night. Warm in the evening and a bit more early evening sun.

Saw this graffiti when we went for an afternoon walk. I was impressed because I could understand it.

However, this was my photo of the day. A delicate little star flower.

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It was an early start. The alarm buzzed at 4:00am and after a swift breakfast we were off to the airport. Got the tickets and waited for the call to gate. Basically, everything went fine apart from a 90min transfer to the hotel, but we were warned about that. Once we got to the hotel the problem appeared. It would appear that Barrhead Travel had taken our money, issued us the documentation but hadn’t booked the hotel! To give the hotel staff their due, they sorted things out swiftly and we got a 2nd floor room with a sea view. Beautiful sunny and hot day.

Sunset over the Sanctuary of San Salvidor in Mallorca

Poor wee spider sitting in its wet web in the early morning drizzle.

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The Titan crane at Clydebank.

After Clydebank we went to Loch Lomond, well, Lomond Shores – just more shops.  Then the Titanic struggle of the home journey along the M8.  I consoled myself by remembering that I was only travelling that way once.  Some unlucky punters have to face that nightmare every day.

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… turn to brown. Apparently it’s all to do with the sugar.

It was a relaxing day … once we came back from Falkirk after seeing the F.A.  A weight lifted from both our shoulders.  Expensive, but hopefully worth every penny.

Golden Bowl for dinner tonight and saw these leaves on the walk over to Condorrat.  That Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens is a true cracker.  Cropped and some sharpening in Lightroom5 then colours emphasized in Intensify.

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With all the hype about the iPhone 6, there are those who say the camera in the iPhone 4 is inferior.  This is the result on a dull day, wide open at 1/15th in my unsteady hands. It’s certainly good enough for me.  Straight out of the camera, almost.  Only cropping done in Lightroom.

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Went for a walk as usual this morning from Auchinstarry.  Weather was no great, but soon it became quite dismal.  Drizzly rain by evening.

This was the view from the canal at Auchinstarry.  It was the last bit of sunshine we saw.  The view was a bit uninspiring although I did like the patch of sun on the hills.  I did what I could in Lightroom and then passed control over to Intensify, allowing it to bring out more detail and also to intensify (no pun intended – but it is a good name for the prog) the colours.  The final result is not really representative of what I saw, more like what I’d have liked it to look like.

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My painting palette.  Painting is becoming a messy hobby.

It’s strange really.  Way back in the early ’70s I was dead keen on painting.  Then in 1974, I decided I’d get an SLR camera to take photos that would be subjects for a painting.  Little did I know that photography would take over completely from painting for the next 30 odd years.  Now that I’ve retired and have a lot more time on my hands, I can once again start painting and maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to use photographs as subjects for my painting.  It’s started.  I’ve already done one painting from a photo.  Who knows what will happen now.

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