Helensburgh and Lomond Real Ales Festival

This small festival has grown and now spreads over two days of live music and lots of real ales. It’s becoming one of the top drinking events of the Scottish calendar. Helensburgh is across the Firth of Clyde from Greenock, near Loch Lomond and on the edge of the Trossachs National Park. The website for [...]

Message in a Bottle!

I had a rather unexpected interesting afternoon today. After doing a bit of overtime at the shop this morning I took the dog for a walk. We strayed a bit from our normal route and ended up at an area which is obviously a disused dump. I found hundreds of old bottles and stone jars [...]

My Old School

The Hermitage Academy (above) I attended is no more. The huge horrible Brutalist dual monstrosity of concrete and glass you cannot miss on your entrance to Helensburgh will soon be demolished to make way for housing. A few hundred yards along the road is the new Hermitage Academy where my kids will go. Am I in [...]

The Water of Life

Last night at the whisky tasting group, we had a Burns theme. Members were encouraged to wear a kilt for the ocassion and haggis, courtesy of Helensburgh butcher Joe Callaghan, was served. All the whisky was cask strength ones which means an alcohol content around 60% (in other words not watered down like most standard strength whisky which [...]

Clyde Steamers

I sit about five minutes walk from Craigendoran Pier which was for 91 years the main terminus for the Clyde Steamers. From my family home window as a child I would watch the fleet of steamers come and go. I well remember the Waverley and Jeanie Deans being two of my favourites as they were paddle [...]