You could be forgiven for thinking I had gone to the Lake District and not visited any lakes, but of course I did.

En route to Cockermouth we passed Bassenthwaite Lake which is large but flat looking if you know what I mean.

We passed Thirlmere, a pretty enough lake but nothing spectacular, in order to visit Grasmere, lake and village, where we sampled the “famous Grasmere gingerbread.”

We also climbed up to Allan Bank, a house which William Wordsworth once rented.

From the left hand side of the house as seen above I took three photos of the lake and village, stitched into the one below.

The lake itself is little more than a puddle but the village is a delightful wee place.

Then onwards, up and over from the A591 to the A592 a very steep ascent giving me the opportunity to photograph Lake Windermere. Again a stitch (of two this time.)

We then kept on up the A592 travelling almost the full length of Ullswater – which is impressive, if not quite as magnificent as most Scottish fresh-water lochs. Particularly appealing were the tourist pleasure boats plying the lake, reminding me of the Loch Lomond of my youth and a trip to Loch Katrine about 12 years ago. It was raining by that time though and we didn’t stop. Perhaps next time.

This is the Island Enforcer, moored off Kirkcaldy for a few days at the end of October. On the shipping websites she is described as an offshore construction vessel. She is not quite as Swiss Army Knife in looks as the Solitaire or Audacia of fond memory but still has some weird sticky out bits.

The first description I found of her was as a diving ship and I thought, “Isn’t that a submarine?” but she has been redesigned for offshore work.

More images of her can be found here.

Two more ships and an old favourite.

This is the cruise ship M S Rotterdam heading out of the River Forth last week en route to Invergordon! Apparently 100,000 cruise passengers dock at Invergordon every year, which is somewhat baffling. One of my work colleagues comes from Invergordon (as often as possible.)

This is the Rotterdam in the Netherlands six years ago (photo from Wikipedia.)

Just off Dysart is the rather rakish from of the cargo ship M S Troms Capella. She’s been hanging around for well over a week.

Here’s our old friend Solitaire from the same vantage point above Dysart harbour that I photographed the Troms Capella.

Behind her stern that’s North Berwick Law on the opposite shore.

You wait all your life to see one pipe-laying ship… and then two appear at once.

Solitaire has been joined by the Audacia. This was the pair of them yesterday afternoon.

Here is the Solitaire foreshortened.

And the Audacia aftshortened. (You can just see the Bass Rock in the background to the right.)

By this morning, when conditions were much hazier, they had swung around.

Here’s a close-up of Audacia from today.

The link to the Audacia above has a cracking picture of her as well as a couple of promo videos!

One of the interesting aspects of living in Kirkcaldy is the ever changing view out to sea. There are usually quite a few ships either at anchor or moving up and down the Forth.

For the last week one in particular has been prominent. Here it was along with another about a week ago.

As you can see the one on the left has a peculiar shape. The good lady remarked that it was the shipping equivalent of a Swiss Army knife what with all the bits hanging off it.

Here is a crop of the above.

The ship is still hanging around and I finally looked it up on a shipping movement website. It turns out it’s the Solitaire, the largest pipe laying vessel in the world.

I don’t know if it’s actually been laying any pipes.

This is a picture from the ships and harbours photos site.