Day Eight of Eleven

Day Eight.

Montrose Folk Club.

We stayed under the lee of the Ochill Hills with Brenda and Richard last night, and they gave us good directions to get to Clackmannan tower. I wanted to see it because I painted a representation of it in my portrait of Alasdair Fraser. The weather continued to be dreamily sunny and wispy, and I couldn't think of more perfect conditions to see the tower, last lived in by the last of Robert the Bruce's line, Lady Catherine, in the late 1700s. Built in pink sandstone, with crenellations, it was an evocative sight, set on a hill with a panoramic backdrop of the Ochills. John used his new camera to take lots of creative shots. Now he wants a polarising filter. The other feature of Clackmannan was this intriguing stone edifice....

We stopped for lunch in Perth. We meant to just drop in, but everything was so gorgeous in the sun…. We came across the Toby Carvery straight away, and had been given a two-meals-for-ten-quid voucher earlier in the trip, so we used it! If you are up for a roast lunch, this isn't a bad way to get one, lots of vegies, choice of meats. We sat in a sunlit booth overlooking the River Tay and Perth city. After lunch we walked across the bridge to buy a paper, and I've never seen the Tay look so inviting, I almost could have jumped in, but the fisherman wouldn't have liked it!

I saw a little bit of art in Perth, and enjoyed a walk around, but frustratingly, found the huge art gallery with no time to spare to look inside. We drove on to Montrose, admiring the countryside and getting excited when we glimpsed the sea.

Montrose Folk Club is held at the Links Hotel, where they also put us up. Its a classic old hotel, quite big and full of fading grandeur, like huge mirrors, small sculptures and some really wonderful stained glass windows by the aesthetic movement pioneer, Daniel Cottier. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Cottier)

We had a keen crowd and some terrific floorspots including poet Rachel Fox, who presented a chapter of her epic poem about the mental hospital in Montrose. For all of her poem, look here: http://balladoffearandnow.blogspot.co.uk/