Alternative activites for windy days

Dear reader, as you know we have been on the boat this week, sailing around our local Clyde waters. As luck would have it we have been subject to a windy spell of weather, nearly all from an Easterly direction. On Wednesday at Largs it was like the Levanter off Gibraltar, screaming down the hill and giving me the willies about even getting off the berth, so we decided to head South to the Robert Burns Museum in Alloway, near Ayr.  For any of you that have been to a supper at the end of January or appreciate the musings of our national wordsmith this is a good day out.

There is the museum itself, where there is a collection of memorabilia on Burns life and some interesting interactive displays.  At the back of the building a cafe restaurant which opens onto a well laid out garden.

Then you can take the short walk down a path to the cottage where Burns was born.  On the way you pass some fun sculptures of characters from his poems, wee sleekit, cow'rin tim'rous beastie here, which for those of you who know your Burns, which I don't, will appreciate was a metaphor for the working class farmers being downtrodden by the land owners.

A Tam o Shanter wind vane, pointing to the East wind.



The cottage.

The bed that Rabbie and his siblings were born in.

The grate.

Brig o' Doon bridge where Tam's mare lost her tail to the pursuing witch, who couldn't follow them over the running water, the River Doon.  Good day out and if you're like me and find the Scot's and local Ayrshire words unfathomable then there are useful translations next to all of the scripts on display.  Maybe something I need in the blog to explain what I'm on about?