Scottish Attractions

My mother's visit is now over and typically the weather has also improved. It was truely dismal most of the time she was here and we had more rain than even we had ever seen before. It was literally coming from the sky in bucket loads and at one time I was afraid we would not even be able to make it out of our lane to take her back to the airport.

Despite this we still managed to fit it quite a few visits. For the first one to Drumlanrig Castle and the Lochnell lead mine in Wanlockhead (the highest village in Scotland) I left my camera at home by mistake so no pictures but John is determined to go to these attractions (he had to work this time!) so hopefully I'll be able to show you some in the future. The very next day after our visit the road we had used suffered flooding as well as landslides which was a bit unnerving to read about in the paper!!

We also went to the botanical gardens at Dawyck and here is one of the vistas. This is very close to home and we managed to avoid the rain while there although on the way back it was of cosmic proportions!

Another succesful and mainly dry attraction we visited was Abbotsford, the house of Sir Walter Scott, our famous Scottish novelist. Think Ivanhoe, The Lady of the Lake, Rob Roy and many other heroic Scottish tales. The house is still much as he left it and is now run by a trust after his last serviving relative died not too long ago. We had an enthousiastic guide in the house and there was an amazing lot to see, specially thousands of books,

but the highlight of the visit was definitely the walled garden which was truely magnificent and that despite the rain which had been playing havoc with the plants.

It still looked stunning and had lots of dahlias, a flower which I'm normally not overly fond off but these dahlias changed my mind and I think we must have some for our garden next year.