Milton of Buchanan is a village in Stirlingshire on the road between Drymen and Balmaha, near Loch Lomond.

On its eastern edge there is a cemetery which contains 19 Commonwealth War Graves. All are from the Second World War.

Rifleman W Clabby, 29/1/1943:-

An MC and DSO recipient, Brigadier F H Witts, Irish Guards, 9/51941, aged 54:-

Captain W S Race, Royal Engineers, 4/2/1945:-

Major E H Williams, REME, 1/11/1945, aged 55 and Gunner F H Searle, Royal Artillery, 27/8/1945 aged 39:-

Private T F Dodd, Pioneer Corps, 29/4/1944 aged 19 and Corporal T Lloyd, Pioneer Corps 27/9/1944:-

Gunner G Jones, Royal Artillery, 11/4/1944, aged 19 and Sergeant W B Graham, Air Gunner, RAF, 23/4/1944, aged 24:-

Balmaha is a village on the eastern shores of Loch Lomond. I remember the Maid of the Loch used to call there on its trips up and down the loch back in the day.

The Loch from Balmaha:-

Boats on the loch:-

Present day pier:-

Looking south from pier:-

Loch inlet at Balmaha:-

The Maid of the Loch was built at P&J Inglis yard in Glasgow then dismantled and shipped by rail to the slipway at Balloch where it was reassembled:-

These are some old photos of the Maid on board:-

There are also some models of older Loch Lomond steamers; The Marion, The Princess of Wales, Eurosyne,  the Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, The Queen, Empress:-

Princess May, Prince Edward, The Maid of the Loch:-

Loch Lomond from the Maid, Loch Lomond Shores shops to left:-

The Maid of the Loch is a paddle steamer which was the last largish vessel to cruise up and down Loch Lomond. It was apparently the last paddle steamer to be built in Britain, at the Glasgow shipyard of A & J Inglis.

For a while it had been tied up at a pier in Balloch at the foot of the Loch and trading as a floating restaurant.

Latterly it has been under refurbishment.

Last September various buildings and organisations in the West Dunbartonshire area held an open day. We took the opportunity to visit.

Access to the interior was by a somewhat precarious metal stairway. The inside was of course far from pristine due to the refurbishments. Some of the original fittings were still in evidence, though.

Ship’s Bell:-

Art  Deco style clock in saloon:-

There was a model in lego:-

And what I assume was an older model. However, I remember her colour as being totally white back in the day:-

One of the traditions of a cruise on the loch (or indeed “Doon the Watter” – see first paragraph in link) was a visit to “see the engines.” (The inverted commas are because some male passengers used this phrase as an excuse to go to a ship’s bar.)

Engines:-

I always find these ships’ engines fascinating especally when they are in motion and powering a ship.

One of the internal exhibits was the decoration of one of the ship’s paddle boxes:-

Luss is a village on the shores of Loch Lomond in the west of Scotland. It’s about twelve or so miles from Dumbarton.

It was the village where most of the outside shots for the Scottish Television (STV) soap opera Take the High Road were filmed.

Luss from the village pier:-

Part of Luss from the other side of the pier:-

Luss Church:-

In the churchyard there is a Viking hogback stone:-

Just up from the church there is this curious bridge which seems to cross a small inlet of Loch Lomond:-

In the village itself there’s this cottage with (shallow) cat slide dormer windows:-

The Loch Lomond Arms is at the top of the road down to the pier:-

Drymen (pronounced ‘drimmin’) is a village in Stirlingshire, Scotland.

Main road through the village.

The village is now bypassed so there’s not too much traffic but you have to go through it to access the road to the east side of Loch Lomond and the foot of Ben Lomond.

Shop and War Memorial. The War Memorial is behind the road signs.

Drymen War Memorial. From southeast. A simple cross above a column on a rectangular base. Great War names:-

Drymen War Memorial. Dedication reads, “The Great War 1914-1918. On this Memorial are inscribed the names of the men of this parish who at the call of King and country left all taht was dear to them endured hardship faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten.”

From north. Dedication and WW2 panel to left. Nearest panel contains Great War names:-

Art Decoish Extension, Drymen. Thirties style at any rate. Banded contrasting painting, flat roof.

Picador, 2015, 70 p including 1p Notes and Acknowledgements.

This, Jamie’s latest book of poetry, won the Saltire Society Book of the Year Award for 2016.

There are 47 poems here of which only two stretch over 1 page in length. Most take the form, if not the formal structure, of a sonnet, though Soledades has eight lines of what look like prose before opening out in its last three lines. Some are very short indeed. The last, Gale, has only 16 syllables, shorter than a haiku. The longest, Another You, bears out the potency of cheap music, the titular deer in The Hinds are “the bonniest companie”. Ben Lomond refers to the bonny banks in a poem which, like the song containing those lines, is about death and remembrance. 23/9/14 is an injunction to gird up again after the Scottish Independence Referendum. High Water compares ocean tides to an adulterous affair, Scotland’s Splendour scopes out the delights of memories from a book stumbled on in a charity shop, Wings Over Scotland is a litany of the recorded deaths of birds of prey on various landed estates, taken – verbatim it would seem – from the original reports.

The language Jamie uses goes from standard English to various degrees of Scots depending on the poem. Migratory II, (eftir Hölderlin) is the most uncompromisingly Scottish. The prevalence of poems about animals or landscape places Jamie’s poetry firmly within the tradition of Scottish literature.

Pedant’s corner:- midgies (I know Scottish spelling is a moveable feast but midges, please,) “one less left” (“one fewer” sounds more natural to me.)

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.

I took my photos of this over a year ago and have only just got around to posting them.

The Loch Lomond Hotel is in the village of Balloch which as its name suggests is at the foot of Loch Lomond. The loch is only five or so minutes from the hotel.

Balloch and Loch Lomond are only a few miles from Dumbarton.

This one shows the doorway with its nice rounded portico but the windows have been mucked about with.

These two old postcards show how it used to look. It seems once (in the 1960s, judging by the cars) to have had a pointed pediment above the doorway.

Edited to add:- some more of my photos of the hotel are on my flickr.