This blog is sometimes a wee bit of a journal too. Little memory joggers for myself, about what’s been happnin’.

And what happened this morning was that I was out sitting waiting for my little meths stove to boil, ready for a morning coffee on a stoney beach a couple of miles from Campbeltown. I sat watching the sun slowly rise, somewhere between the Isle of Arran over to the left and Ailsa Craig over to the right. In the foreground were the cliffs of Davaar Island, accessible at lower tides just a half mile back towards the town.

It was such a lovely place to be at that moment. But then, as they say, the cherry on the cake revealed itself…um…on top of the cake.

A couple of otters appeared playing about 20 metres away, right in front of me. And then they started thinking they were dolphins, and did this amazing thing of swimming under water, and then shooting up out in an arch before swimming beneath the surface again. Just beautiful. And the sea as calm as it gets. A few minutes of magic.

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t left the comfort of home after tea the night before, walked out to a nice camping spot a bit further on from where this story began, put up my tent, and slept there the night.

I’ve usually settled for the short term comfort option when I’ve been thinking about doing something similar to this in the past. What an eejut I’ve been, when I’m so lucky to live where I live.

And how much else have I missed?

Like otters randomly surfing the seashore, a few more thoughts on this topic tomorrow.