Rescued peonies and a bike ride

I went out in my PJ’s and wellies to rescue the rain bombed peonies. The midges were out in force. If I did any gardening later, I thought, it would be full midge jacket and Little She Bear's homemade midge repellent on the only bit of exposed skin, my hands.
Homemade midge repellent made from bog myrtle leaves (picked up the hill), vegetable oil and tree resin. It’s good.

After I'd done the grocery shopping, Toad and I went for another cycle ride on the Loch Long side of the peninsula. It was good to see quite a few sailboats out, including a couple with black sails. Pirates, Toad said. 😉

I stopped on an uphill bit. This was above me.

A walk up and along the peninsula

First over the garden fence at the top west corner and across the top of a field where bluebells and young trees abound.

Take a look down to the loch.

Then up along the old track past the house where Elizabeth Todrick, the only female shipwright at Clynder's McGruer boatyard, used to live. We checked out the benches in the garden.

Further up we climbed over this style. There is a picnic area near the brow of the hill where you can look across Loch Long: 

Breezy but still hot (by Argyll standards). It’s a good place to enjoy bog cotton and skylarks. We heard a Grasshopper Warbler too.

Cotton grass, milkwort and Cladonia lichen alongside the path.

We came back by a different way and saw some huge, keeled over, but still growing old oaks. This is a place to bring my grandsons when they next visit from Derbyshire.

Hot enough to go sleeveless and manufacture some Vitamin D, not least for its usefulness against Covid19. I don’t tan much but I think I caught some sun today.

On a walk across two fields

I went to see a pal who lives two fields away, I looked back at one point at this old field boundary of beech trees. There is the remains of an old drystone wall there too. I expect that was built before the trees grew.

We haven't had any rain for a week or so and the ground, usually soggy, was amazingly dry. I've noticed short dry periods like this in spring before in this part of Argyll. I was able to crawl under this fallen tree without getting wet. Bit of a shock to the sytem really when so much effort is spent trying to keep dry!

And look how dry the ground is round this cattle feeder! Positively weird! 🤣

In the first field I walked along the woodland boundary fence. On the other side of it is a wonderful bank of bluebells. I knew there were bluebells there but not that there were so many. Although I've been in that wood many a time, I guess I hadn't been there at bluebell time before. I must go back in a week or two to see them in flower before the other vegetation takes over.

bluebell bank

Further along, the other characteristic of this bank becomes apparent. You can walk along the top of it. Apparently it was part of a pilgrim's path to St.Modan's church in Rosneath where the relics of Modan, an abbot of the Celtic church in Scotland who then became a hermit in this area, were enshrined.

Another local saint is Gildas. There is a fuller Wiki article about him and a newish Catholic church (1968) in his name, also at Rosneath.

Another section of what, I'm told, was the Pilgrim's Way

The current hill track, that goes all the way to Kilcreggan (the 'kil' part in the name refers to a hermit's cell and 'creggan' to the cragginess of the coastline) but it is higher up the hill than the old Pilgrim's Way. It would make sense for the old Pilgrim's Way to be lower if they were heading for Rosneath.