Our day got off to a somewhat sluggish start. The Muthu Queen Hotel is NOT a 4 Star hotel as most sites and itself proclaim…..shame on the tourist board or who ever it is that inspect hotels for giving this hotel 4 stars…..1 star is 1 too many……The maintenance of the property is dire…..simple things which you expect at a no star hotel…such as curtain which pull….Thankfully as John is over 6 feet tall he could reach the curtain rail and gradually move the clips along one at a time until they were almost closed….there was no chance of them sliding in any direction…..they obviously had never used silicon on their rails …..a simple trick which normal people do on a regular basis……The TV didn’t work …if it came on for a minute or two it soon descended into a colourful pixelated screen reminiscent of the old testcard days……The shower was great only the shower screen allowed the water to flow directly onto the floor soaking the bath mat….As we left in the morning for the day out we made it very clear that by the time we got back in the late afternoon we expected the curtains and the TV to be fixed….”yes of course” was the reply by the lovely highly apologetic smiling staff….

Our first stop was 2 minutes along the road…we pulled up next the harbour wall near where the ferry to Mull goes out. We quickly went and got bacon muffins and coffee for breakfast which we happily munched on in the car

Then off we went….John had a secret view point up his sleeve…directing me to drive almost straight up a hill on very narrow lanes….i was almost cursing him when we came across a carpark and steps leading up into an acropolis style tower…

From here you got a superb view across the Oban harbour, whole town and the distant Islands and coast line.

Today we were exploring an area I’d not been to before…the broader coastal area which includes an area known as Lorn within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland.

There are many small islands known as the Slate Islands which are in the Firth of Lorn approximately 15 miles south of Oban ….. A 30 minute drive south of Oban brings you to the Isle of Seil. You cross on to Seil via the historic Clachan Bridge which was built I. 1792. It is more frequently known as The Bridge over the Atlantic.

Carrying on along Sial we came across a couple of highland cattle in a field and a deer who had jumped the fence onto the road….we watched her jump safely back into the trees…

From here we drove across Seil to the small coastal village of Ellenabeich. We stood watching people coming and going on the little passenger ferry to the Easdale Island….the ferry trip takes just 5 minutes.

Essdale Island has today got a population of 60-70 people after it had dropped in the 1960’s to just 5 nearly a generation after the end of its Slate Quarrying period. The last Slate was cut in the 1950. The disused quarry’s provide a haven for bird life. From the Seil Coast we watched Oyster Catchers wading and cracking their finds on larger rocks.

We wound our way around the coastline of Seil, taking in Cuan

… starting back towards Oban we came across a strange sight in the middle of the road …he didn’t stay long…

We went back through Balvicar before retracing our steps back to Kilninriver, Kilmore and then Oban…. The scenery was stunning….just a shame the photos don’t do it justice as it was once again a grey day.

On returning to our Fawlty Towers we found that nothing had been done whatsoever so ever to sort the problems our room had…. A lady calling herself the manager came, looked at the curtains and the TV agreed that neither were acceptable, sent a young man to sort it out…he couldn’t…actually John was more useful with the curtains than he was…so the lady who we now think was the duty manager changed our room from No.16 to No.14…. Well at least it was closer to Dad….she pointed out the fact that, like Dads, we couldn’t open the window because it wouldn’t then shut without trapping your fingers in the mechanism ….you had to press a tiny button in the hinges as it passed the hinge…she nearly broke one of her highly decorative false nails trying to show me…..but yes the TV worked and the curtains closed and even if the room had no view it didn’t matter ……at least I couldn’t be accused of flashing at passers-bye!!!! Excellent.

We chose not to have Manuel !! Serve us in the restaurant and I had booked a table at the very smart Italian restaurant next door….No.17… it was delightful.

Superb service and great food… we ate a very nice 3 course meal before walking next door to Fawlty Towers AKA The Muthu Queen. We retired to bed in our new room, happy after a superb day and tummies full with yummy food…..or at least I thought we had retired….

Sometime after I had climbed into bed I heard Johns voice say “Help” from the bathroom….jumping out of bed I rushed and opened the door…..standing bemused with his trousers around his ankles, paddling in about 2 inches of water was my poor husband. He had finished washing and gone to go to the toilet when he felt water spraying the back of his legs…looking down his trousers were soaking…the pipework at the bottom of the flush cistern was squirting water out in every conceivable direction……I dragged on some clothes and raced downstairs to reception- the receptionist came with me and the look on her face said it all….she turned and ran to find help….in the meantime John went in search of a toilet and I used the bin bucket to catch one jet of water in one direction and a plastic bag pulled open from the loo seat to the toilet brush to make a tripod to catch some of the water in the other direction…The deputy manager came back with a man who had a wrench…sometime later she disappeared again ….eventually I went down to reception and said we were tired, wanted to go to bed so we would go back to room 16….. but they’d given this malfunctioning room to someone else…..the only room available was room 47 on the 4th floor with the lift out of order….but no worries the plumber had just arrived as had the actual manager…..all were very sorry for the problems….a considerable time later the problem still wasn’t fixed…the water was creeping out of the bathroom across the carpeted floor…finally enough was enough…the manager kept saying they would make amends tomorrow when we booked out….but that didn’t solve the now problem….they carried our bags up the 4 flights of stairs and we finally got to sleep in room 47…….where everything worked apart from the lift to get you there !!!! And it had a great view ….

If you think that’s the end of the matter wait until tomorrows blog !!!!!