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We are home from our short trip to the south-west.  It's a long way out to Stranraer!  Almost as far as from here to Leeds - except the roads are slower. There wasn't much sighting of the sun, but we only got really wet once ... 

The gardens at Logan are lovely, but we were too early for the rhoddies (everyone is blaming the long winter for holding things back). The magnolia that I blipped yesterday more than made up for it with its display of huge pale pink blooms covering a tree which must be forty feet high.

We visited the Priory of St Ninian at Whithorn, the cradle of Christianity in Scotland. Some of the stones date from the 600s. On the Isle of Whithorn there is the ruin of a tiny chapel and the natural harbour where pilgrims landed. The site is still of significance to locals - in the shell of the old lifeboat shed people leave small memorials to loved ones, stones from the beach with messages inscribed, driftwood crosses. It's very touching.

It's mainly grazing land down that way - cattle on the lush pastures and sheep on the higher ground. On our way back we stopped in Moffat - not so far from home, really.  In the centre of the town is this statue of a Cheviot ram, a reminder of how important sheep were to the prosperity of the the district.  It's a fine piece, even if it is lacking ears. I can't say I'd noticed till I read it today on Wiki.

Percy and Douglas have survived their first stay at the cattery. But they are happy to be home, and so are we.