Days out from Sheiling BnB, Food, History, Tourism

A Fun Day Out

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Last week after all the fun of the scarecrow festival things might have felt a bit flat. But, on Thursday we had a day off – and the sun shone.

At Kilninver bridge we took the less travelled (for us) right turn and headed south on the A816. We passed a few good spots for a day out, Arduanie garden, Carnasserie castle, and historic Kilmartin glen with its ancient sites and museum. We left those of another day and continued south to Ardrishaig where ewe had a short walk around the canal basin and a delicious lunch at The Steamer Terminal

After lunch it was a short drive up Loch Fyne to our destination of the afternoon, Auchindrain township This is one, if not the, best preserved historic townships in Scotland. There are a number of homes to visit. The one at the top of this blog is Bell a’Phuill’s house, which means Bell (Isabella) who lives near the muddy pool’s house. It was the home of Isabella McCallum from 1850 to 1915. A burn runs close by and the ground is soft, hence the name.

George as a former RG was particularly interested in this house.

Known as Eddie’s house and home to three generations of Edward McCallum’s it was the registrars’ office for the Cumlodden registration district. Cumlodden church can be found a little way south of Auchindrain but is no longer in use as a place of worship, and the registration office is at Lochgilphead.

The registrar’s table and chair, in the ‘best’ room of Eddie’s house.

After all that history we were in need of a cup of tea so stopped in Inveraray, just a few miles further up the loch, for refreshments at Brambles. this cafe has long been a favourite of ours – for obvious reasons – and was a regular stopover when we were travelling to visit family in Greenock. Inverary is a lovely little town with plenty of food and drink offerings, interesting shops and the Jail, and castle. We had a fun time at the jail’s escape room last Christmas.

Then it was a short drive home via Lochawe, Taynuilt, and Oban, completing our circular trip in time to give Bramble her (slightly delayed) tea. NB all the places we visited are dog friendly, Bramble was with us but feeling camera shy.

Caroline x

Seil, Tourism, Uncategorized

Seil under siege!

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Not Really

We were visited by a film crew last month. I was ridiculously excited and took every chance I could to go and spy on the action. My perseverance paid off and I saw the helicopters flying. Those stunt artists earn every penny of their salary. They flew high over the bay and out over the sea towards Mull – on the outside of the chopper. They were pretty scary, even though it was all make believe.

What show was it? That would be telling, but it’s one of my favourites and the production company was called Jackson River so IYKYK.

In other news we’ve had a glorious spell of weather, the bluebells and primroses are gorgeous

And our mornings and evenings are filled with birdsong

Screenshot

This was a particularly busy evening for my bird app.

But with the dry weather we’re also on wild fire warnings, so if you’re out and about remember, no open fires and dispose of litter carefully.

Hope to see you soon

Caroline x

Seil, Tourism, Uncategorized

Spring 2025

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We’re enjoying Spring here at Sheiling BnB, we’ve had so many dry sunny days that there’s a wildfire warning, of course that’s not to be celebrated.

We’re taking advantage of the weather to spruce up the outside of Sheiling

Well…George is.

And it’s so nice you might even find me doing a few jobs in the garden (I love gardens, but gardening? Not so much) though it’s a constant struggle against these critters.

But I’m never unhappy to see these

It’ll soon be time to welcome guests, but before that we have family visiting for Easter. Hope the weather holds.

See you soon,

Caroline x

Seil, Tourism, Uncategorized

Scarecrows and scarycrows

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Our second annual (if you ignore 2020 and ’21) Scarecrow Festival kicked off today. And while we’re enjoying typical Argyll summer weather as I type (it’s pouring), this morning the sun shone for its launch.

There was music and a classic car parade

these folk are maybe a bit quiet, but the Nevis Ensemble played up a storm
Lagonda, the oldest of the cars on show today

Unsurprisingly there are a number of scarecrows with a maritime theme

And with an active wild swimmers group a number of mermaids

But we’ve also had a visit from Mary Poppins, or as she’s known around here Mhairi Popsox

And some very inventive in jokes

If there are more deer than people on Jura, I’m pretty certain there are more rabbits than us here on Seil

And inspired by last time around’s favourite. There are a number which are actually scary crows

having killed the farmer last time around they’ve now taken over the farm

We’re due a fun filled week, rain or shine.

So staying with us or elsewhere, or just visiting for the day you’ll have a great time.

See you soon

Caroline xx

Days out from Sheiling BnB, Food, History, Tourism

Enjoying a day out

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Even though we escaped the worst of the recent storms and wintry weather we haven’t really travelled very far from home recently. So it was nice to have a little day out yesterday.

We headed south down Loch Fyne to the beautiful Kintyre peninsula. We had a quick stop in Tarbert to stretch our (and Bramble’s) legs and then on along the coast towards Campbeltown.

We stopped short of Campbeltown at Glenbarr where Glenbarr Stores has a  cafe serving delicious locally sourced food, garden centre and farmshop (as well as the Post Office)

 

We even got a look at their lovely B&B rooms, it’s nice to see what other B&Bs are like. It would be a great spot to explore what Kintyre has to offer.

We continued south to Campbeltown where you can find the newly restored Picture House ,  one of the oldest surviving cinemas in the country, next to Campbeltown museum which we’d visited on another trip.  We decide not to indulge our inner Paul Mccartney  by continuing down to the Mull of Kintyre but headed over to the east side taking the sometimes switchback B road to Saddell with its ancient stones and beautiful beach*

We all enjoyed a walk there, but Bramble most of all.

Licky b

Kintyre is a fairly long day out from Sheiling BnB but well worth it;  or maybe spend more of your time exploring beautiful Argyll and take a few days there too.  A road trip to rival the North Coast 500?

 

*park in the village and walk down past Saddell Castle.

Food, Uncategorized

Spring

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We might not have a Superstore on Seil but we do have a super store. We go there most days, for our newspaper, eggs, jam and other essentials. For the past few months we’ve been trying to make the journey on foot which though admittedly challenging on our more humid days is a much more sociable way to travel.

B at the shops

Bramble waiting outside the shop 

 

The weather has been lovely for the past few days  and it’s brought out a wonderful display of flowers, in gardens and growing wild. I can’t name them all, but here are just a few from this morning’s walk.

the first bluebell
and the last of the
daffs

growing wild

and in gardens

And then there are also these cute youngsters

ropped cute lamb

Which did give me qualms about some of the contents of my shopping bag, but it’s all part of the cycle of life, here on Seil.

History, Uncategorized

And the Academy Award goes to …*!

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I love finding old pictures of Sheiling, so I was really excited to find it had featured in a movie . I came across this site – Reelstreets which not only lists film locations, but has a clever now and then feature so that you  can view a still from the movie and then an up to date photo. The “now” picture of Sheiling was taken a little while ago too. The tree has been felled and the bushes cut back since it was taken, but the gate and posts are still in place.

The film is The Bridal Path a 1959 movie starring Bill Travers and with a cast including  George Cole, Gordon Jackson and Annette Crosbie. Other scenes were filmed at Ellenabeich, Oban and Castle Stalker. I haven’t seen the movie yet but it is still available, so will be joining the dvd library here.

* The Bridal Path rates a respectable 6.9 on IMDb but it didn’t win Best Picture for 1959. That honour went to a slightly better known and bigger budgeted film,  Ben Hur

History, Tourism, Uncategorized

A gap in the clouds

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We’ve been lucky to escape the worst of the winter storms so far but Gertrude and Henry gave us a bit of a buffeting. So it was lovely when the sun peeked out yesterday afternoon and we were able to enjoy a walk more or less upright and without one layer of waterproofs.

sunbeam

oops! need to clean the windows 

 

We climbed up the hill behind the house looked down on the Sound bathed in sunshine.

sound

that’s Sheiling peeking out on on the left hand side

 

Although on our return we crunched through this…

hail on path

hailstones on the path

 

Today dawned brightly and as we needed to make a trip into the town we took Bramble to her favourite beach for a run and then walked over the hill (following the cycle path ) to Dunstaffnage Castle.

castle feb 16

inside Dunstaffnage Castle

I spotted some signs of Spring in the ditches,

frogspawn

it’s frogspawn

 

but Winter will be with us a while yet, there was sleet after lunch. Still it’s beautiful here , whatever the weather.

rainbow

if we didn’t have rain there wouldn’t be rainbows

 

 

History

…red sky morning

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We’ve had days of rain as successive Winter storms have battered their way across the country. So far we’ve been lucky and spared the floods seen elsewhere but it is good to enjoy a day without rain, though it’s still very windy and strangely mild for December.

It may portend more storms later but a little bit of sunshine always lifts my spirits so I was probably smiling as I set off with Bramble for our morning walk, and well her mouth is just set for smiling….

P1030454

And I got happier as we walked. Because  I learned another snippet of local history. An out building which I’ve previously thought was a byre turns out to be where coal was delivered to the  island. So could that puffer  delivering coal along Loch Feochan have also delivered coal to Seil?  Did George’s grandfather sail past our house all those years ago?

We can’t ever know for sure but it all helps root us here, making new connections and discovering the old.