Scotland

We spent our birthdays flying Warsaw – Copenhagen – Edinburgh. After picking up Verity Volkswagon we found our B&B in Leith and thought it was going to be a quiet night planning our Scottish trip. However, our children had sent us a dinner voucher for a lovely restaurant in Princes Street, Edinburgh so off we went to celebrate our birthdays. The next day we started a housesit in Roxburgh just 75 kms southeast of Edinburgh in the Scottish Borders looking after Ted and Mabel. Roxburgh is a small village with just 14 houses. Our aim here was to enjoy the quiet and see some of the area. We bought a historic Scotland 7 day Explorers pass so if we thought we were all castled out before, just imagine what we’re going to feel like at the end of this – 70 Historic sites!!! There’s no plan to see them all but both of us being of Scottish descent means we like to get value for money, so I’m sure we’ll test the numbers.

The Scottish Borders are full of Abbey Ruins and within a few miles of us we visited Jedburgh Abbey, Drybergh Abbey, Melrose Abbey and Kelso Abbey. Each of them was occupied by monks in the 14th to 17th centuries. Most were ruined by the English in the wars but Britain preserves them well, gives good history lessons and makes them available to the public – some free, some not. These were also on our Explorers Pass. We ventured back down into England (Northumberland) to see the historic villages of Heatherslaw, Etal and Ford and back up into Scotland to visit Berwick on Tweed and St Abbs on the East Coast and North Sea. St Abbs is a beautiful little fishing village in a rugged setting, surrounded by jagged cliffs, and old fishermen’s cottages. It was well worth the drive to the coast.

The Borders was a completely unknown area for us and we were lucky enough to be housesitting for an offsite Farm manager so were able to learn about Scottish agriculture. The Borders is mainly a cropping area growing barley, oats, wheat and rapeseed. This is possible due to the lower rainfall and slightly warmer temperatures.

The harvesting was almost finished so all the fields were either having the straw baled to be used for indoor animal bedding over the winter or were ploughing to sew the next crop. Almost all British farms would not be profitable without the Government subsidies which are paid mostly based on acreage, with agricultural use requirements as well. The amount of agricultural machinery on the roads was staggering. There wasn’t a day out that we didn’t spend considerable time behind a crop harvester, tractor & plough, or tractor with a huge load of straw.

Any trip to Scotland must include a visit to Edinburgh Castle which sits on Castle Rock and dominates the Edinburgh skyline. Even though the summer holidays were over, there were still crowds of tourists. Our Explorers Pass allowed us to jump the queues but we still had to fight the crowds once in. The queue to see the Scottish Crown Jewels was hundreds of people so we decided that we didn’t really need to see them. We arrived the day after the Edinburgh Tattoo so all the seating was being dismantled. We were surprised to see how uneven the ground was where the tattoo is held. I suppose it is thousands of years old so it’s not going to be perfect but it must make it hard to perform with precision.

The history of Scotland, it’s wars with the English, it’s reformation in 1560, it’s move from Catholicism to Protestant, it’s forebears arranged marriages to strengthen relationships with France and England all go together to make this particular part of the UK what it is today – a place of time honoured traditions. It’s story is told through it’s buildings and Edinburgh Castle is pivotal to that.

After 10 days of walking Ted & Mabel around all the walks in the beautiful Roxburgh countryside it was time for their family to return from Majorca and for us to head off and see what else there is to see of Scotland.