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Tuesday 20 March 2012

Day 9: Mulling over the Dark Side of the Universe

March 19th dawned wet: a return to the dreich weather of the start of last week.  Time for a quick walk down the hill to Main St Tobermory again, past the distillery...




...and a visit to the bank, before heading off to the High School.  There I met my host Donald Holmes, who had arranged two talks - with Fourth to Sixth years and then with First to Third years - in the Gym.  I got set up fairly quickly, and hooked up to the school's excellent sound system.  I was also able to set up my camcorder to record the first of the talks - on "Putting the Iron in Irn Bru".

Both Mull morning talks seemed to go down well, with lots of good questions from the younger pupils in particular.  I also arranged a visit to the primary school, which is immediately adjacent to the secondary.  We set this up for after lunch, which gave me the time to pop down to the harbour and Main St for some soup and a sandwich at the Tobermory Bakery.



Back at the Primary School for 2pm, I spent the best part of an hour trying to answer a barrage of questions from the pupils!  How wonderfully refreshing to see their enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions, and to demonstrate what they already knew (which was a lot!)   If only I'd had time to visit more primary schools on this trip - but then again Oban High School has about 30 feeder primaries, Iain Fulton told me last Friday, so the logistics would have been way too complicated in other places.

Still the rain was coming down as I drove back to Craignure in time for the 5pm ferry to Oban.  This time it was the "Lord of the Isles", which was fast becoming my home from home...We berthed in Oban about 5.50pm, and I set off for Kennacraig on the Mull of Kintyre.  Not the most pleasant drive of my tour by any stretch, which was a shame because in more pleasant weather the scenery on this leg would have been just as pretty as on the islands themselves - particularly around Ardfern, where I'd been last September for Russell's wedding (but it didn't look quite like this in the March gloom).





Safely ensconsed in Rhu House, just off the A83, by about 8.30pm, I battened down the hatches and got ready for the last leg of my epic journey:  to Islay and Bowmore High School on Tuesday.

May the Force be with you
Martin

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