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Sorry been too busy enjoying myself to get round to blogging. Thanks for all the responses. As Angus said, The Shiskine Sheep Stakes were hysterical; it was a great day and a brilliant party that night

. About The Arran Art Trail, I've made some amendments and sent copies out to everyone mentioned. Thanks for the comments about Marvins' seal, it is wood, I got confused while trying to type. As for the people who were missed out, I did put a letter in the banner & they didn't respond, however I've sent a copy to everyone listed in the Index so if they respond this time they will be included before I publish.

Thanks also for the comments regarding removing ticks; I've found covering myself in formula puts them off. The Ranger Service guide lines is to wear long trousers sealed with gaffer tape, strip outside, shake all your clothes out then put them in the tumble dryer which will kill them and to keep any you remove in a jar in the fridge so you can give them to your doctor if you get any of the symptoms.... This is obviously far too much trouble, so will stick to midge formula. Might try the tea tree oil although that might have the same effect as Vaseline.

I haven't looked at the blogs for a couple of weeks as things a very busy here! We've started rowing practice in The Viking Longship again, Tuesday nights; times vary with the tide, everyone welcome. You have to join to come out but it's only 拢15 for the first year then 拢10 a year after that and it's well worth it, I think we're charging 拢5 for visitors. We took The Longship out for the first time last Tuesday night. It was a glorious sunny evening. The girls had spent the last week filling the bottom of the boat with rocks for ballast for the new sail. After a week of hard labour however, the boys came along and pointed out that the boat had to sit about 20" further down in the water and despite being full of rocks it had only dropped 1/2"... So we had to row out into the Clyde, lift the decks and throw all the rocks out... Well it was a nice night for it! Don't know what the people on Bute thought though, all they would've seen is a Viking Longship pull up and start lobbing rocks at them.

It's been decided that lead ingots are the answer to the ballast problem. Alan is making them and apparently we've got about 50 so far, we need 105 so if you have any scrap lead please send it along. The plan is to use sand until we have enough lead but it would be great to have the boat properly ballasted before the invasion of Largs in September.

Friday night was the opening for Arran Visual Arts Exhibition at Lochranza Hall. It's well worth a visit with an eclectic range of arts and crafts by many of the islands' most talented artists

Whiting Bay had their Gala Day on Saturday and I was up to my eyes at work as we had a wee party for our first year in business.

Sunday was an incredibly warm clear day so Julie & I decided to walk from her house to mine via Goat Fell. We left Julies house in Corrie about 1.30pm and headed up the mountain. The theory was that although the Corrie side is much steeper it's shorter so we would get up quicker then we would descend down the Brodick side, as it's less steep but further so should take 2 hours up and 2 hours down. It actually took 3 hours to get up, then we had what was left of the lunch we had been stopping to scoff all the way up. Had a chat with friends who arrived shortly after us, they had been dropped off on the String that morning and had walked/climbed along the ridge of A'Chir, The Castles, Cir Mhor and over The Saddle to come up and over North Goat Fell to get to the peak, they made us look like a pair of utter wooses as they ran past us on the way down. We still took 2 hours to get down to my house. From the top we could see right into Belfast Loch and all the way to Mull! We waved to everyone on the surrounding islands, honest. We took lots of photos (actually remembered to take my camera for once!) so will be painting lots of views from the top of Goat Fell this autumn. We met another couple of blokes who were running down and stopped for a chat, they were on their holidays. I don't get the whole running about mountains thing; surely you miss all the good bits like the eagles, deer, snakes etc? We got to my house and lay about for a bit recovering then decided to go to the Sannox Beach Party which appears to have become a weekly occurrence, and had a great night.

Apart from that I've been busy with different committees, especially Corrie Capers & the Viking Longship Committees as The Capers start on Sunday! I'm running the Craft and Sand Sculpture Beach BBQ on Tuesday afternoon followed by The Viking Speed Dating and Cocktail Party on Tuesday night. Seemed like a good idea at the time... I should have the full Corrie Capers Schedule later today so will post it as soon as I've got it. It's going to be a really good week. Anyone who wants to enter teams for the cricket or Longship Races need to let us know ASAP.

The Brodick Highland Games are on Saturday followed by the Mountain Rescue Dance in Brodick Hall so this weekend is packed. I was going to try to nip over to Pittenweem for the start of their Arts Festival but I don't want to miss the games and dance here. So much to do & never enough time!

Anyone coming for Corrie Capers etc?