Friday October 16th

Today, instead of doing what we originally planned, we decided to stay close to the cottage. Our original plan was to go to Incholm Island, but driving to Edinburgh was a long way, and we’d already done that drive twice this week. We had a long journey back home the next day, so we thought that – since Mathew was doing all the driving – we would investigate some things locally, which I thought was a good idea! And we did SO much!

First off we went to Greenknowe Tower, built in 1581, which was an open access Tower which was very cute!

Next up was Scott’s View where Sir Walter Scott liked to stop and admire his favourite bit of the countryside of the Scottish Borders. Apparently, when his body was being taken to its burial place by horse and carriage, the horses were said to have stopped for a couple of minutes at the top of the hill, as they had in life with their master, to admire the view.

We then went to the Wallace Statue – NOT the monument because that is in Stirling! After a short walk of about 15 minutes, we came upon this large statue of William Wallace depicted as a Greek God. Opposite him was a statue of an urn with some poetry carved into it, but it was hard to read and quite worn, so I found it off the internet:

Peerless knight of Elderslie

Who wav’d on Ayr’s romantic shore

The beamy torch of liberty,

And roaming round from sea to sea

From glade obscure of gloomy rock

His bold companion call’d to free

The realm from Edward’s iron yoke

Also close to the path was a little box in which Mathew had a nosey, and found a pad of paper and a pencil in which lots of people - visitors to the statue – had written things. Some normal comments about the statue, and other random things like “why was he played by an Australian?”, and I cringed at “Where’s Gromit?”, and rolled my eyes at SO many “FREEDOM!” comments.

Honestly – do people really believe everything in movies? Do people really think Wallace shouted this? Have they read about him? *sigh*

Next up was Dryburgh Abbey which was the burial place of Sir Walter Scott. It was a very nice Abbey, and quite a lot of it was remaining for example, the Chapter House which had some faded but existing painted wall plaster which was nice to see. There was a CD playing in there of monastic chanting, which was quite haunting and atmospheric – a good idea actually, because you could hear it all over the Abbey and you didn’t’ know where it was coming from until you found the Chapter House.

Next, we went to Melrose which itself is a very pretty little town. Its small, but it has lots of things like plenty of places to eat – café’s and restaurants, pubs and bakeries. There were also quite a lot of clothes shops for a small village, a cute little Post Office, and quite a lot of gift shops too.I bought my new hat and scarf here – you can never have too many scarves and hats! :o)

We went to Melrose Abbey which was – like Dryburgh – also very nice, and some parts still remained like art of the roof, which was quite impressive. I managed to find the stairs up to the top as well!

Tiem was passing, so after lunch we moved on to Floors Castle which is a stately home – more like the usual over furnished one this time, and a few more paintings. Still, there was less than I expected. The place was pretty empty of visitors what with coming to the end of the season, and as a consequence, we ended up getting told quite a lto of information by the guides in the rooms…which were all very interesting of course! We were told that the owners had actually changed some of the interior because they thought a lot of it was “too much”. Things like ornate ceilings being flattened or just painted white. It was quite nice to hear!

We didn’t go into the gardens as yet AGAIN, my feet were killing me! So we went back to the cottage via Hume Castle which only Mathew went into. It was locked for the season, but there was a cottage nearby where you could get the key from if you really wanted to go in – but Mathew said from the outside looking in, there wasn’t really anything enticing him to go inside. From the outside, it looked like a cardboard cut-out – it didn’t look real! But it was, and it looked strange because the parapets we saw on it weren’t actually parapets – they were the bottom half of windows. Plus the whole thing was just four walls. Not very exciting really!

We went back to the cottage and packed for tomorrow, and then we relaxed before going to bed.