Line Up.

The day dawned dreich, as we have recently come to expect, and it was our annual U3A outing, this year to Dumfries House – a building which has no connection with Dumfries at all. It was built in 1754 by the Adams family in the Palladian style though, with the entrance stair coming straight down from the main entrance rather than at right angles to it, the façade is unlike the Palladian style houses in the Lothians. In 2007, the house and its contents were saved from auction on the initiative of HRH PC at a cost of £45M (note the correct use of the capital “M” to signify million, the lower case “m”, as used by the tabloids, signifies a thousandth - as in millimetres). It was, perhaps, a bit adventurous for us as, although the house contents are spectacular, the long coach trip meant that there was little time to explore the grounds and I felt decidedly ill by the time we returned home.
 
A major disappointment was that PC, a noted environmentalist, has seen fit to populate what is intended to represent natural British scenery with alien species, including cultivated varieties of primula and an immature arboretum containing a large number of rhododendrons, a pet hate of ours
 
The bunch of trouble-makers in the Blip is a small selection from our group posing for their souvenir photograph, though I must admit to riding on the back of their designated photographer. The extra is of a portion of a rather splendid old cedar (I hope).