Sunday notes

Brilliantly sunny day, the best day of the year in terms of weather. Not a cloud in the sky. Temperatures a very respectable 11C / 52F, although the wind keeps it cool. Went out for an amble round Goat Island. It being Sunday means it's very quiet out and about. Once the battery in my camera has recharged, I'll go out for another amble.

The pollution in the playpark, which I mentioned in pictures taken on Friday, goes back to the time when a gasplant was located on that site earlier in the 20th century. The plant was demolished in the 1960s, but the soil never cleaned up. It is contaminated with heavy metals and the like. The council have now got the £60,000 needed to remove the toxic stuff. The playpark was closed last September as a precaution. We all know what small children are like; messing about in the sand, putting stuff in their mouths &c. So, the playpark will become a tennis court, and the tennis courts will become the playpark. Now, bearing in mind what tennis players can be like (John McEnroe is a good example), I don't know if they're going to be any safer in there.

It was reported today that two people have died on the A9 trunkroad between Perth and Inverness. This road is notorious, as it switches from dual carriageway to single carriageway continually along its 110 mile length. Many people die there every year, but appeals to dual the whole length continually fall on deaf ears. Another blackspot in the north of Scotland is the A96, which links Inverness and Aberdeen. Speed tends to be one of the causes of many accidents there. If memory serves, someone was stopped doing nearly 150 mph on the A9 one day...