Homecoming Birthday

Two celebrations in one week is possibly being a bit greedy, but just three days after our 33rd anniversary comes my (ahem)th birthday.
This year it landed on Sunday, our day off. And as Monday is our day off too, we had a very brief holiday and went down to Ayr for a night.
A bit of a Homecoming (more later) for me as I was born in the Maternity Hospital in Ayr all those years ago.
I had a notion that I wanted to see the sunset over Arran ( possibly my most favourite view) but it wasn't a sunset sort of evening.
The picture above, courtesy of here shows what I was looking for.
We also had a good walk around Culzean Country Park, another favourite place of mine - Culzean Castle above - I spent a week at the park when I was a student on a group sketching/study trip and have loved it ever since.
This morning we had a touristy visit to Alloway, to see Burns' Cottage and the Auld Brig o' Doon.
It's a place I've been to often but I must say I was impressed with the general turn out of the village this time. It's maybe because of the 250th anniversary of Burns and the year of homecoming etc, but everywhere you looked there were flowers, neatly clipped hedges and very tidy paths and gardens. Then again it's maybe always as nice as this.
I'd say it's a real credit to Scottish tourism and couldn't fail to impress foreign visitors.
This is the Auld brig, featured in Tam O' Shanter. If you don't know the poem it can be found here.
Right across the road from Burns' Cottage is this lovely tidy Post Office, full of interesting bites to eat, gifts and... a display of our cards! What more could the visitor possibly want!
We took a long and very winding road home to road test our new car, and ended up at South Queensferry for a late lunch. From our table at the Hawes Inn there is a good view of the Forth Rail Bridge.
Finally the Year of Homecoming Scotland is 2009 and we are doing brisk business with our homecoming cards. Needless to say Alloway Post Office is a good customer.