Tourists Day One

I had uncontrollable shivers for a couple of hours last night. I had to retire to bed with my wee electric blanket. It must have been reaction to the Covid jab. Or perhaps the three whiskies in the afternoon. Or maybe even Bridgerton, which JR was watching (I’m not a fan) - or possibly a combination of all three…

Luckily, I had recovered by morning, and we set off for a wee touristy jaunt down in the Borders. First stop, our favourite cafe/gallery  Flat Cat in Lauder. No, it was shut. But we went to the even better cafe/bookshop/deli in St Boswells.

By this time the sun had come out and it was warm and sunny. We stopped off for a wander round Melrose. There are some nice wee independent shops there, and I was pleased to see the ice cream shop was still going strong. We sat in the Priorwood Garden to eat them. We didn’t visit the abbey, but it’s always worth a look. 

On to Sir Walter Scott’s abode, Abbotsford. Most impressive - the setting, the treasures contained within, and the audio guide you downloaded to your phone, and the cafe with views to the house. It was really touching to see his leather chair and desk.

On to our overnight destination, Galashiels. Roads closed, diversions… VERY loud electronic music… and a VERY LOUD DJ yelling non-stop - something was happening… It was a big national bike race all round town. And it went on ALL afternoon and into the evening. 

This was fine, except that when we went to the cinema to see a film I’d been keen to see, ‘Operation Mincemeat’, (a true story of WW2 derring-doing) the manager came to say that the VERY LOUD DJ & MUZAK just outside the cinema could be heard in that screen. Would we care to go to ‘Downton Abbey’ instead? JR’s face lit up - Yes! I’m not a fan of flouncy period dramas with nice costumes, posh houses and hardly what you’d call gripping story lines. But after a brief stand off, we went with the wrong kind of ‘period drama’.  T’was a waste of two hours of my life, and I see that ‘Operation Mincemeat’ is not on in Edinburgh now. But guess what’s on everywhere…

We watched the cycling which went on till evening. It was fantastic - they go SO FAST! They were SO close!! It was SO NICE when the commentator eventually stopped - he’d kept up non-stop barrage of noise for hours. The whole town was out on a lovely evening to cheer the cyclists on.

Our hotel was right by the finish line/commentator, however, once the event stopped and the barriers were cleared away, it was a most peaceful night. Though we did not have wifi…