Douglas "Germinal CCXXIV" Brain: Day 26 (15th July 2022)

I'm becoming a weather bore. Woke to rain again, but today was always going to be a quiet one as for the next few days I've got a fair amount of miles to cover. Did laundry, then headed into Oban again for another lunch consisting of locally sourced oysters.

The Seafood Shack was well crowded this time, but I hung around until a space materialised on one of the tables. My oysters drew the attention of the family next to me. There were three generations and we quickly got chatting. I told my two oyster related stories - the first that I'd vowed never to eat one until I saw a programme about French city primary school children who were taken to the seaside for the first time and all tried an oyster and all of them ate one and liked them. My second is that I can't really feel guilty about eating an organism that has neither brain nor central nervous system alive, and that they are one of the most sustainable, least polluting food sources available.

The two girls in the family (I'm guessing 8 and 10) were persuaded to try one, and to their credit, both did. "My work here is done!" I proclaimed and we all had a good laugh. I couldn't help but think I'd met the mum and dad before, possibly at a festival. They had seen Sea Power in 2010 and loved my road trip idea.

I also met a woman in her 70's while I was back at the carpark. She approached me about the Alphard - she used to have a Japanese import hi-top affair many years ago. Her late husband had also undertaken a quest on his retirement and achieved it before he past away 3 years ago. His was to attend a match at all 92 league football grounds which sounded like far more travelling and organisation than my current odyssey. They moved up from SW London to Oban 20 years ago and her only regret was that they hadn't done it sooner. She was lovely, and I was kicking myself afterwards for not asking her name.