It's a small world

Bob-Dubery

In 2008 Mrs X-rated and I spent part of our holiday on the lovely island of Arran (two Rs.... the one with the jerseys is "Aran" with 1 R)

And this is where we stayed

The very excellent Castlekirk in Lochranza.

This building is a converted church. Upstairs there is B&B accomodation (the skylight you can see was right outside our bedroom door) and on one side is the proprietor's (Vicki Hudson's) house. There is a large space downstairs, which is where Vicki runs her art gallery.

OK... so what?

Well in 1998 a mobile studio was parked outside of Castlekirk and said large space was transformed into a recording studio for Bert Jansch. The basic tracks for his album Toy Balloon were recorded during those sessions. Overdubs and the final mix were done in London.

Arran has 2 postmen (one for the west side of the island, where we were based, and one for the east side), a brewery, an excellent distillery, a 12-hole golf course, loads of standing stones, vastly more sheep than people, a healthy red deer population and a little link to Bert Jansch.

vic

Lovely building.
Any pics of the insides of this gem ?

Bob-Dubery

No. Well I don't have any. The gallery is off-limits to B&Bers. Arran is a very lovely place. The castle in "Castlekirk" is right across the road - a ruin now. Lochranza is very small. No restaurants, but there were decent meals at the Catacol Hotel a couple of miles down the road. I played at a ceilidh there one night.

I think it's 57 miles around the island. Highlands in the north, lowlands in the south.

vic

X-rated Bob wrote: No. Well I don't have any. The gallery is off-limits to B&Bers. Arran is a very lovely place. The castle in "Castlekirk" is right across the road - a ruin now. Lochranza is very small. No restaurants, but there were decent meals at the Catacol Hotel a couple of miles down the road. I played at a ceilidh there one night.

I think it's 57 miles around the island. Highlands in the north, lowlands in the south.

Sounds like the right environment to soothe a tired soul ?

GaryMac

Yes indeed.

As with a number of places in Scotland sometimes the souls get so soothed they have great difficulty in standing up!!!!

GaryMac

VellaJ

Speaking of small world...

A day or two ago my dad was testing out some of his older radio HAM equipment (for those who don't know, a radio HAM is a radio amateur, roughly equating to a bunch of people around the world who still put up antennae and talk to each other via radio). He heard a guy from Russia speaking to a guy in Cape Town about a good friend he used to have in South Africa who ran a specific "rig" (or radio transceiver).

So what of it?

The "good friend" in question was the man who ran a Scout event called Jamboree On The Air back when my dad was a Scout (about 45 years ago) and my dad subsequently bought that exact radio from this guy.

What are the chances of hearing about this after such a long time hey?

Wizard

My dad used to have HAM radio's ?

singemonkey

It's very cool Bob. You see the great vid of Bert Jansch recording in another beautiful house that I posted on facebook?

I was thinking how awesome that looked. Was imagining a South African equivalent - maybe hiring a classic Karoo farm house with a big stoep to record. That would be freakin' sweet.