Blue Skies in the Borders

How lucky are we to have woken up to beautiful blue skies this morning!  There was quite a wind blowing, however, but we still managed to have a glorious day.

After a yummy breakfast of traditional Scottish Porridge, we headed out to Abbotsford, the family home of Sir Walter Scott.   The drive was along a lovely road, where the locals somehow drive 60 mph. (This might explain why we counted at least a dozen dead pheasants along one short stretch of the drive.) But no worries.....Marty is very polite and pulls over if he thinks that he is holding up traffic for any stretch of time.

We arrived at Abbotsford just after it opened,  and the lighting that shone on the buildings couldn't have been more perfect!

And walking to the entrance was even better!

When we walked inside, we were greeted by two lovely women who were eager to set us up for a self tour using audioguides.  We were given the option of listening to a "Lovely woman with an Edinburgh accent", or Sir Walter Scott himself, as we walked through the bottom level of this stately home.  I picked the writer, and Marty chose the woman, which he soon learned was NOT as entertaining as the man himself.  I found myself laughing as I listened,  which really is the best way to learn about someone's home.

The tour began in the downstairs armory where the walls were covered with all kinds of interesting items, including statues of SS Peter & Paul, which were replicas from the ones that once stood in nearby Melrose Abbey.  

From there we walked into Sir Walter Scott's study, where I immediately fell in love with the surroundings.

Just look at all of those books!  And a staircase leading to an upper level of books!  The cases were adorned with some interesting details.

As if this were not enough of a literary heaven, walking through the doors brought me to the library!

Can you believe this?   Loads and loads of books nearly everywhere I looked! 

A statue of Shakespeare sat stately along one wall.

And there was a painting of Scott's son dressed as a Hessian soldier, hanging above the fireplace.  Scott, himself, told me that this was the most important feature of the room, so the painting must have been one of his favorites. 

Scott went on to say that he had originally been told that the library was in need of a  "flirting" room, so he extended a turret structure, which held cases of books that would appeal to young woman.

So, apparently, while reading, a young lady could entertain a young man, and enjoy this fabulous side view as well.  

You really can't beat that, can you?

As I continued on the tour,  so many items caught my attention.  Here are just a few of my favorites.

Honestly, this had to be one of the best tours that Marty and I have taken. 

We really enjoyed every aspect of it. 

Once outside, it wasn't difficult to imagine just why this home is so special.  

It really is like a picture post card, isn't it?

From here we headed into Melrose.  First stop was Priorwood Gardens.  Unfortunately, as a safety precaution the gardens were closed.  I'm not sure what prompted that, but I do know that the winds were extremely gusty, so it could be that was the link to the closure.

We'd found a free parking spot on the street, so we decided to walk around in search of the Harmony Garden, also a National Trust property.   We passed the mercat cross which is actually in Market Square.

We soon figured out that we were walking in the wrong direction, so we turned around, and headed down the street, and finally found Harmony house

and the magnificent gardens located just across from Melrose Abbey.

We decided to visit the Abbey which is an HES property.  Did you know that one is considered to be a "concession" rate at the age of 60 here in Scotland?  So, when the girl rung us up at a regular rate, we were a bit delighted to think that she didn't realize that we were both of age for concession, but that didn't keep us from informing her that we qualified.  She was more than happy to change the rate.  

I suppose it's a good thing that we don't look our age.  Well....at least this young attendant was convinced otherwise.  

Marty decided to use the audio tour for the abbey, but I declined, which, to be quite frank, was the smarter option in my mind.  I felt like I knew way too much about the Cistern order just a few minutes in, and there was no way to fast forward!

Once again, the views were awesome.

And we were able to climb a stone turret and look out from a vantage point.  

The wind was brutal, and we didn't spend too much time outside as we didn't want to risk being blown over!  But I did manage to get a quick photo of Marty under the bell tower.

And he got one of me as well!

The views were so beautiful that it's difficult not to share them, so here are a couple more.

By now, I was pretty tuckered out by all of the walking and the wind, so we headed to a small coffee shop, which, by luck had wi-fi, and I was able to post yesterday's blog.  I was having difficulty connecting to the internet at our B&B, but I think that I might have resolved that issue.  I suppose we'll find out tomorrow! 

After  enjoying a scone and cappuccino, we decided to drive out to Smailholm tower.  The drive was rather interesting, with some of the road being only wide enough for one vehicle, and it did present a challenge on one occasion, but for the most part, we didn't have any issues.  But you better bet that we kept our eyes peeled in the event someone might be popping around the corner.  

I took this photo of the tower at a distance, while we were still on the normal track road.

and this was a bit closer.

How awesome is that?

And here is Marty before we tracked up to the tower.

This time the path was well marked.

The tower was built in 1450 by the Pringle family, as a protection to keep the English marauders from stealing their goods.  The bottom two floors were used to store food, and the family lived in the upper floors. 

In 1645, the tower was sold to Sir William Scott, and Sir Walter Scott was known to have spent time here with his grandparents while recovering from polio.   It was here that the author came to love the ballads of the Scottish Borders.

I find it fascinating that all of these sights that we visited today had some sort of connection to Sir Walter Scott.

After hiking up the hill,  we entered the doorway

and began the climb up the turret stairs to the top of the building.  Along the way, there were figurine displays of many of Scotts works, on each floor. 

I've only shown a few, but each one was unique and beautifully displayed.

At the top, we were able to step outside, after we made certain that there was enough protection so that we wouldn't be blown away.  I'm not kidding when I tell you that the winds were fierce this afternoon!

But just look at those views!

Amazing, don't you think?

It truly was a spectacular day and I'm happy to have been able to share our adventures with you.

I hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did!  

Beautiful Borders

As a brief update to my earlier blog, we ended up arriving much later than anticipated, so I quickly re-evaluated our plans, and after we picked up our rental car, we headed out to Preston Mill in Easton Linton.  

Traffic was a bit heavy due to the time of day, but within half an hour, we found  ourselves driving along the narrow streets of this charming village.  

After arriving a few hours later than scheduled, we decided to reevalate the plans for the day, and we headed right out to Preston Mill in East Linton, which is actually East of the airport. 

Just on the outskirts is a National Trust site, Preston Mill, which is actually one of the oldest oat grinding mills in Scotland.   Pulling into the parking lot, I was awed at the picturesque view that was in front of us.

Believe it or not, the sun was shining so brightly, that it was difficult to capture a decent photo from this angle, but I’m not complaining!  Here’s a view from the opposite direction.

How is that for amazing?  Picture perfect, I’d say.

We were immediately greeted by three very friendly NTS attendants, one, named John, who was chosen to be our extremely entertaining tour guide of the mill.  

He was pretty much the expert on the place, as he had grown up in the village and had spent many a day tormenting the last owner.

But he was very knowledgable about the place, and he went through great detail in describing the various stages  involved in turning oats into the ground product.  

Oats has been ground in this facility, since the 1700’s, and, actually, the mill is still operational, but was not working due to a bad bearing that needs to be replaced.  So, on any other given day, one would be able to actually participate in the grinding of the oat, but this is only for demonstration purposes.  The oat product is not sold for consumption.

We learned that there are three different consistencies that are produced:  fine for oat cakes, medium for porridge and course for grist.  All three types have been in production from the start.  

The structure of the drying room is unique, in that it is shaped like a hop house that one might see in Kent, and the roof is made of imported tiles that came from the Netherlands.

Due to the close proximity to the North sea, many of the buildings in this area have that same type of red tile on the roofs of the buildings, as it was quite easy to obtain from  across the sea.  

However, that same distance to the sea results in frequent flooding, and the building was actually marked in several spots, with the height of the water due to floods that occurred in particular years, the last being as recent as 2017.  This stone shows the levels in 1990 and 1992.

The grinding process was fairly simple, but, obviously quite a bit of hard work as much of the transfer of the materials was done by hand.   Coke was used to fire the furnace in the dryer.   

Then, the dried product was ground in the stones, that are turned by the water that runs through this wheel along the side of the mill.  

Really, quite a fascinating process to see close up.

For you Outlander fans out there, this very same mill was the one that was used in the scene where Jamie hides from the red coats by dunking himself in the water, only to have his kilt torn off by the circulating wheel.

According to John, that water is extremely brisk, and he had quite the chuckle in the retelling of the story and the resulting firigid actor. 

After we completed the tour, we were encouraged to walk over to see the “Doocot” that is accessible for viewing across the field from the mill.   John felt the need to clarify that “Doocot’ is actually the Scottish word for Dovecot, a building that was built for the doves to nest in that actually provided meat and eggs for the locals.  

We set out along the trail to the bridge in the distance, but not before Marty got side tracked by the fish ladder that John had mentioned during our tour.

Unfortunately….there were no fish a jumpin’. 

So, we crossed the bridge,  and headed down the lane to the doocot, with the village in close distance. 

We spotted a few doves hanging out on the roof as we got closer, but they flew off quickly upon our approach.

We headed back to our car, and Marty took one last picture with me in front of the mill.

Then we headed to the village for a bite to eat, then began the trip along the coast with the destination of St. Abbs head.   I had planned a brief stop in Cockburnspath as I had read about a Mercat cross that was given to the village by James IV in celebration of his nuptials to Margaret Tudor.

The cross stands right in the middle of the village, with St. Helen’s church directly across, dating from the 1500’s.

The  book that I referenced stated that the cross stood at the end of the Upland way, which is a walking trail in Scotland, and if one walked along the way for a brief distance, one would come to a cove where, upon popping through, a picturesque town would be presented.

Well, we couldn't find anything that indicated that there was any type of path to follow, and definitely nothing that said "Upland Way" . So,  I popped into the general store and asked the man in the store if he could direct me.  He told me that the cross was, indeed, the end, but I needed to go to the end of the road, make a left at the garage, and the path would be on the right.

So, we did just that, but  let me just mention that this was NOT just a brief distance as the book indicated.  And, we never did find the cove, despite hiking along quite a distance before deciding to turn around to go back to the car.  At this point,  Marty decided that we would drive along the coastal trail in hopes of finding this picturesque view.

We found ourselves on a road that was just about as wide as our car, heading up a steep hill, when I finally spotted the upland way, pretty far from the village.  There were  wooden steps heading to the top of a cliff, but we couldn’t stop anywhere to check it out. We drove to the top of the crest, anticipating a breathtaking view as we rounded the corner, only to see a very large trailer park nestled among the cliffs below.  NOT exactly what we had been looking for.  

When we got to the bottom of the cliff,  there was a sign that said “Ford”, and there in front of us, was the road, literally sitting in the middle of a stream.  Luckily, Marty had rented an SUV, so he had no issues driving through, although I will mention that I breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the other side!

Our travels then took us back up the hill and over to the NTS sanctuary on St. Abbs, which was our intended destination.

We parked in the lot and headed to the trail.

I had presumed that we would be walking up that hill, and was a bit surprised when the arrow pointed left and we found ourselves walking along a stone wall.  Didn’t see much of a view opportunity there!

But, once at the end and through the turnstile, it was obvious that we were at the right spot.  As you can see, the views were spectacular! 

Of course, Marty had to climb the hill to find an even better view, although I'm not convinced that it really was.

Honestly, with the weather so perfect, we could have stayed much longer, but we had an hour’s drive to our B&B, so we headed back to the car and made the drive into Kelso.

Our B&B is lovely, and the owner is quite amusing.  But that story is for another day!

But before I leave you, I want to share one of John’s (from the mill) musings:

One day, a young miss was going out with a Highlander. She asked him, “Is anything worn under that kilt?”  His reply was, “No worries, lass, everything is in proper working order”.

And on that note….I’ve got to get out and enjoy yet another beautiful day!