Manda's first married and overseas birthday!

Birthday 24 was finally here! A little lap of luxury was granted with a good sleep in til 8.30am (in the car but a sleep in nonetheless right?!), quick opening of a birthday card (written in the night before in the car with Manda ie no surprise!) and scratching of £2 scratchie then we were up and off!

Sleeping in the car on the b'day morning

View from car accommodation

A rather slow lap around the isle of Skye was done and thankfully the crossed fingers had worked: the weather, whilst cloudy, was 100% on the previous day. Road re tarring and the odd motorbike like track (they call it a road) helped me drive to a more leisurely pace all the while knowing we had a long drive ahead to get back to Oban (still just in Scotland). The scenery was similar to Ireland with the rocky and bare hills and the little inlets with their yellow/orange seaweed and large tidal swells. Funnily enough, we didn't see one accommodation place without the no vacancies sign up! Busy and popular place!?!It was a longer drive to Oban which reminded me of Honfleur in France; another pretty but small fishing/tourist town. The isles just off the coast made it an incredibly pretty spot and created a lovely calm harbour. Just what we wanted for a birthday bash!

Quite typical of the Isle of Skye

Oban marked a few momentous occasions; first haggis feed, first time I initiated a cafe stop for coffee, first time I've ever been embarrassed whilst having happy birthday sang to someone other than myself, and Manda's first married and first overseas birthday! More on them later!

Oban harbour

A birthday dinner at highly regarded Ee-usk was terrific. An impressive offering of fresh seafood with plenty of fresh light flavours. We had a delicious platter to share with thai fish cakes, prawns wrapped in smoked salmon and a mountain of soft mouth watering garlic mussels! I couldn't resist but to temp fate with one of their local fresh oysters which at nearly £2 was a rip off but great all the same. Mains were a real brainstrain as everything sounded great! Manda settled for a trio of steamed fresh fish (monkfish, halibut and sea bass) while I stopped at the seared local scollops with savory mash, salad and mornay sauce. Treacle pudding slices with butterscotch sauce to finish! So good!

On the trip into Oban an older and considerably fuller lookalike of James Bond passed me and 4 other cars like we were standing still; I didnt see him coming up behind me, just the roar of his Austin Martin engine, scared the life out of me! It wasn't the last time we'd see him or the car; needless to say I couldn't stop myself  making a flippant remark when I saw it parked close by the restaurant and recognised the driver inside who booked the table for me. A bit of a laugh came of it but no offer of a quick spin. No harm in asking right?!

I mentioned before our embarrassing happy birthday singing episode... I'd asked when booking that they put a candle on the dessert which I felt sure Manda wouldn't find too embarrassing, a candle is fairly discrete isn't it?! However I didn't consider that the staff (perhaps 10+ waiters and the boss) would all come from their posts and sing loudly creating a hugely exuberant scene. The lone candle on our small island of sticky treacle pudding in it's ocean of butterscotch sauce even wavered in the spectacle created. Fun times! Poor Manda, all she'd asked of me for her birthday was that no one would sing to her, which is usually the case, and I couldn't even manage that!

So the birthday thankfully had worked out ok! What a relief it was!