Ellen and I had a goal to take a swim in the ocean before the summer ended. Yesterday that box was ticked when Ellen and I crossed the road in front of our accommodation, the Glenisle Hotel, walked across the rocky, sandy, seaweedy beach and took a dip in Lamlash Bay. The video evidence is here (link).

Bonus points if you recognize the quote

This morning we took the train from Glasgow Central to Ardrossan Harbour in order to take the ferry to the Isle of Arran. Here's Ellen chatting with the ticket examiner in the train as we left Glasgow (link).

Here's the Ardrossan Harbour ScotRail station (link).

Here's another view of Ardrossan Harbour. Notice the wind turbines in the background:

However the ferry had a mechanical issue. Here's the ferry with its hood up so that it could be serviced:

We took a short bus ride to Troon, where we boarded another ferry:

We were able to move to seats with a window. Here's a scene near the Lake District. If you look closely enough, you'll see sheep.

A look up and down the carriage of the Avanti West Coast train that brought us from London to Glasgow. We were pulling into Glasgow and people were getting ready to disembark.

Video of Glasgow Central Station.

Ignore the guy's rear end. I took the photo because of the wonderful variety of fish sold here. Not something a guy raised in the US midwest is used to seeing.

Ellen at the Main Gate to University of Glasgow. Very impressive old buildings!

We're going to the Isle of Arran and will definitely have some of this ice cream.

Video of one of the quads at the University of Glasgow.

Still at the University of Glasgow. Good for them!

More U. of Glasgow.

Glasgow street scene.

On the way back to our hotel from U. of Glasgow, we stopped for some fish & chips. Ellen took a silly photo of me.

I know I'm stepping into a minefield here, but I want to give a shout-out to a voice of reason in US politics: Heather Cox Richardson. She describes herself as "a history professor interested in the contrast between image and reality in American politics. I believe in American democracy, despite its frequent failures."

She publishes a daily newsletter "about the history behind today's politics." You can see her latest posts, and sign up to get the newsletter in email form for free on Substack.

Hi !Friendica Support,
I've only been able to upload 1 photo at a time to Friendica. Is bulk upload available?

The thumbnail that is shown with a link is confusing at best because it is blurred. Is there any way to show a thumbnail that is not blurred?

Thank you!

Hi !Friendica Support,
I've only been able to upload 1 photo at a time to Friendica. Is bulk upload available?

The thumbnail that is shown with a link is confusing at best because it is blurred. Is there any way to unblur it?

Thank you!

Eric Schmidt of Google:

We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.

tuta.com/blog/how-to-leave-goo…

We made a day trip to Paris to fulfill a longtime wish of Ellen's: to see the Olympics. We took Eurostar from London to Paris. For more info on that, see the previous post. It was the first trip to Paris for both of us. We saw a few sights, and also caught some of the men's bike road race. The weather was great and we had a blast!

Boarding the train in London

Nous sommes arrivée!

The Eiffel Tower

Enjoying a crêpe for lunch

The Seine

A Parisian Métro car

In Gare du Nord, waiting for the train home

It's been a dream of Ellen's to go to the Olympics. With us in the UK and the Olympics in Paris, this was a golden opportunity. We weren't ready to take a multi-day trip at such a late date, so Ellen suggested a 1-day Saturday trip to watch the men's road bike race. We decided to go by train. On Eurostar, the trip between London and Paris, through the Channel Tunnel, takes about 2.5 hours, which gave us enough time to get to the race, and maybe see some sites.

In the UK, the train got up to about 150 kilometers per hour (about 93 miles per hour). In France, it got up to about 300 kph (about 186 mph). Apparently, the tracks in the UK aren't built for anything faster.

Going through the Channel Tunnel was just like any other train tunnel, i.e. dark, with nothing to see, unfortunately.

For my friends who like trains, here is a compilation of the videos taken during the trip:

Train trip to Paris

Several weeks ago, we biked down to St. Albans for their Saturday morning market. On the way, we passed a manor house:

That's St. Albans Cathedral in the distance..

We went up in the St. Albans clock tower while we were there.

As I've said, we like to ride our bikes in the area northeast of Harpenden. Here are photos taken during some of these rides.

This is Shaw's Corner, George Bernard Shaw's country home, Shaw's Corner, now owned by the National Trust and open to the public, though it was closed for the day by the time I rode by.

An old church near Shaw's Corner in Ayot St. Lawrence:

The village well and a church in Great Offley.

The area is crisscrossed by footpaths and bridleways (bikes are allowed on the latter but not the former). The UK gives people the "right to roam", but I'm not sure if the footpaths are because of the right to roam or in addition to it. Here's a map showing the footpaths in the area. A day hiker has plenty of paths to choose from. Here's one of them:

The rural lines are mostly one-car wide. This truck stopped traffic while it unloaded sheep.

Video of unloading sheep

This is the message
Here is Ellen:

This is a video:
video of bagpipes

The Harpenden Rotary Club's annual Classics on the Common event was today. I'm not enough of a car guy to pay for a ticket, but here is a photo and videos I took while passing by. There are a lot more, and better, photos on the website. It attracted quite a crowd - even on a Wednesday!

Video link