Day 4 – at Tarbet, Loch Lomond

Spent much of the morning chatting with the guy, Albie, next to me with Bella, another 6 year old red fox lab, just coming into season, so of considerable interest to Roja. Just down at the Loch with sticks, and plenty of swimming for the dogs, particularly mine.

Albie is a Biomass boiler engineer travelling in his converted Sprinter with his dog, wife and kids back home in Cambridge. Mid 40s and he has quite advanced arthritis, and a big guy also, so increasingly difficult to get around. The Sprinter has 250K miles on it also, but he says he will never upgrade, he loves it so much. It’s a bit dark inside, the shower / toilet taking up quite a bit of space, and a fixed bed like mine, but higher, not a lot of headroom, for his various tools underneath. He was an interesting character, heavily tattooed, including his dog’s name.

I then took the northern spur of the Three Lochs Way to Arochar, and the southern spur back; great views of the 3 Munro’s and the spectacular Cobbler.

It is of course the Friday so the peace until now was about to be smashed. But it took a while, the area filling with campers, but not until late in the evening – it is only a half hour from Glasgow.

The weather pattern has repeated last few days, best time of the day for sun is the early morning, cloud gathers, the odd shower, often wintery, becoming heavier and more common in the later afternoon. Early evening I walked up to the Slanj pub. Covid Rules seem strange in Scotland at present, you can be inside the pub to eat, but no alcohol. Outside if there is a canopy, it must have 3 or it’s 4 side open. But it can be against a wall… This canopy wasn’t, and it was probably about 5C and snow showers, so it was just a couple for me. I asked the barmaid for something dark, and she brought me one of the lightest beers I’ve had for some time; one concern when you can’t see the pump labels, though of course, it’s a pleasure to be ‘in’ a pub again.