Tuesday: A Life In The Ocean Wave

We got up early (1030) for a bracing trip round the Farne Islands. Sovereign IV was our chosen boat, and a fine vessel she was. The tour took us round the islands, up close to the seabird colonies (ammonia wafting from them), past the grey and fur seal rocks, with blubbery beasts basking and swimming up to the boat for a look. The birds were a mixture of puffins, cormorants, shags (apparently there’s a difference), guillemots, and so on, with some young fluffy guillemots still in evidence. Some young fluffy seals were also still around, but these were looking tatty due to moulting into adulthood.

Shuggie came on board with us, but wasn’t too keen at first. He perked up later though, because the ships dog was continually looking from one side of the boat, then barging its way to the other and standing precariously on the steps on the other side to get a look at the seals. He nearly fell in at one point, prompting Mairi to ask how often he had. But he was clearly in charge of the trip, like a canine Skimbleshanks. But on a boat. A marine canine Skimbleshanks. Sadly the second half of the voyage was marred slightly by the heavy downpour. My new Berghaus protected my top half – the rest of me, and the rest of the party were not so lucky. Mairi’s pac-a-mac was only shower proof, and Max’s sportswear was sodden. Ah well, nothing a change of socks and a cup of tea couldn’t fix.

After a sandwich lunch at home, both cars embarked for a disasterous trip to Alnwick. Not much there really, especially when you only have an hours parking, and the rest of your party are waiting for you because you have both keys, and they’ve had a puncture and the spare is flat. It’s a happy time!

Dinner was cold meat and hot chips with pickle, a firm favourite of mine.

Then DVD of Star Wars Episode III, with the dreadful script being made even worse by Haydn Christiansen. And the action scenes are far too busy. There are some great machine designs, tanks, spider walkers and so on, but they swamped the screen. I guess George wanted us to focus on the characters. Uh-oh. Even the famous, “Noooooooo!” fell flat.

Even nephews can spot bad acting.