My Last Shutdown

Hi all,
In my last post we said a sad farewell to the Crinan Canal, which is one of the loveliest places in the whole of Scotland. However, all is not lost and we have now arrived at Loch Awe which is further north and a bit further inland. Below is the first view we got of Loch Awe on the way to our chalet.

The year was 2003 and I remember it well because it was the last holiday I had whilst working in a factory. It was the first week of our annual shutdown and therefor a week to be enjoyed. Those who do not work in a factory will probably not be acquainted with the term, 'shutdown,' so here is an explanation. Most factories have a summer break, usually the same two weeks every year. The factory closes down so that the maintenance teams can service machinery that perhaps hasn't had a break for 365 days. It is also a time when new machinery can be commissioned and manufacturing layouts altered.
If you work in a factory, the shutdown was all you lived for. Okay Christmas came a close second if only for the booze, but shutdown was the motivator and the highlight of the year. The only trouble with the shutdown it was over in a flash. One minute you had 2weeks holiday to look forward to and then suddenly it was just memory.
The first week was always the best and this is when most people took their holidays. The second was spoilt because you'd already started counting down the days when your nose would be back to the grindstone. Two weeks earlier you would have been counting the days till that Friday afternoon when the the factory hooter signalled the start of 2 weeks of fun.
As it happened, I didn't go back to the factory after the shutdown of 2003 and my weeks holiday in Loch Awe. This isn't the place for me to explain why, but if I'd known at the beginning of the holiday that I wouldn't be going back I would have enjoyed it even more than I did. Anyway, after catching our first view of Loch Awe we carried on down the southern shore to Portsonachan House which sat proudly above the loch. (Photo of Portsonachan house below). The chalet that we had booked for the week was one of two that sat at the rear of Portsonachan House and as we pulled up at the side of our accommodation we were very taken with the view. (Below is a photo of the view taken from our chalet). It looked like this was going to be a holiday to remember and so it was.In my next post we will start the tour of the area, but for now I will leave you with a reminder that details of my books can be found by clicking here
If you would like to find out about my pyrography work please click here.
It was a long journey to Loch Awe and my wife and I were very tired, but so was our dog Buzby. If you look at the photo below you will see the snap my wife took of me giving him a cuddle.