Set off ten days ago for France which is where I spend my summers. I was taking the ferry from Rosyth to Zeebrugge which is a nice relaxing way to get to the continent. You miss out all that tedious driving on traffic filled roads.

You also avoid being exposed to the filth that is strewn everywhere. I've enjoyed the months I've spent in Scotland but one thing that gets my goat is the amount of litter than decorates our streets, parks and road verges.

Between Cramond Brig and the Forth I could have filled a dumper truck and the port of Rosyth was just foul. What an introduction to Scotland for visitors arriving that way (or anyway for that matter, the road from the airport is just as bad).

A big contrast over the 400 miles from Zeebrugge to my destination. Not litter free but maybe 0.1% of the litter between Edinburgh and Rosyth.

There that's my grumble over for the moment but don't think I won't get back to it from time to time.

Since getting here I've been playing golf and tidying up the garden, the former being much more to my taste.

I wanted to make a comment on a friend's blog and discovered that i had to create one of my own first of all. I'm not sure that I'll ever put any more than this in it, given that I've already got a couple of websites that I fail to keep up to date.

They are www.barbansais.com and www.brianneill.name