Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Hotter than July

Glasgow Fair Monday and it was a beautiful day. Too beautiful to waste so having sorted mumsy out with requisites and medication we packed our picnic cool bag and headed southwards to the coast. Black box on shuffle the machine went on a rampage of stunning choices Trashcan Sinatras - I've Seen Everything, just at that point on dual carriageway heading towards Ayr where you can catch glimpses of the coast, the cool blue sea, joyous, genius. Traffic around Ayr was unusually busy, slow moving, irritating on what must have been one of the hottest day of July. Still the machine chose some Impressions - Preacher Man and John Coltrane's excellent In A Sentimental Mood and we were chilled but good. The machine seems to know.

We arrived in Dunure, a scenic little harbour town, where they actually still have fishing boats and we had our picnic amongst a throng of picnickers. Some with fancy hampers, however ours was cool and we had enough for two picnics with some left over. We sat around looking at what I think is the most beautiful coastline on earth. The sky so incredibly blue, cloudless, the sea darker but gentle. In the distance you can see Arran's mountains, darkly scratching at the sky. They lie there on a carpet of haar, beautiful. We chilled. Then wandered round the beach and the harbour.

thewife spotted a sign at the back of one house overlooking the sea. Its for sale she wants it and she wants it now. I hate to imagine how much it would cost, but I have a look anyway. She'll have to wait a while.

We decided to head home around five o'clock. That would allow us enough time to pop into Tesco's in Ayr to pick up some stuff to Barbecue and drink, preferably cold and possible even fizzy. We drove back along the coast, into Ayr which seemed busier than it had been earlier. Traffic slowed to a standstill at times. The gods of gridlock had conspired to finish our day crawling through Ayr and then when we neared our destination we saw the crowds and the traffic flowing from Ayr Racecourse. It had been a race day and we were stuck in the middle of a mass exodus, being controlled by what seemed like 2 Traffic Wardens and a couple of policemen. We decided to go into Tesco's, kill some time there and hope that the traffic had cleared by the time we got out. Half an hour later, thirty quid lighter we emerge into the same incompetent gridlock that didn't seem to have changed at all. I put this down to the sheer incompetence of the uniformed controllers. Given an attendance of around 3,500 people, significantly less than a Kilmarnock home game (much less if the old firm are involved) and these people can't deal with a volume that Kilmarnock's finest can disperse in around 30 minutes. Pah. Practically spoiled the day except that we cut through a housing scheme and eventually hit the A77 as the machine hit us with Rammstein's Ich Will as I engaged 4th gear for the first time in a while.

Then home to barbecued lamb and fizzy white.
posted by timesnewroman at 7:14 PM  

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