Dawyck & Destruction

Hi All,
We are now half-way through our holiday in the Border town of Peebles, and after spending the previous day walking around Melrose and its wonderful abbey, a trip to a garden was now in order.

And so it was that my wife and I set off for Dawyck Botanical Gardens. The gardens are situated near the village of Stobo, in Upper Tweeddale, and although it is only about six miles from Peebles, a nicer six miles would be hard to find. I'm pleased to report that the gardens were extremely peaceful, which suits us down to the ground because I've found that noisy places are rarely beautiful. Dawyck gardens can be described as a series of pathways that climb and descend through a magnificent landscape of trees and bushes. There are flowers, in fact, there are lots of them spread throughout the garden for visitors to enjoy. However, those expecting to find sweeping herbaceous borders full of delphiniums and agapanthus will be disappointed.

This is a garden to wander about slowly; to take one's time and appreciate the variety of trees and bushes. Some of the trees were planted a long while ago, so are now of specimen proportions. By the time we'd walked every path in the garden it was mid-afternoon, so we decided that we'd used up enough energy for one day and went back to our caravan and recuperate.


As soon as we got into the caravan Terry Anne put the kettle on while I went into the lounge and switched on the tv. Now, it is very seldom that I have the urge to watch any daytime telly , but I thought I'd just take a look to see what was on offer whilst I drank my tea.

Now then, have you ever had one of those moments when your brain can't understand what your eyes are seeing? Well, this was when I had such a moment. The television screen showed a jet airliner flying straight into a skyscraper. At first I thought it must be a film, but the sound track that came with the images told me that I was witnessing something terrible. I called my wife to come and look and we slowly began to understand that terrorists had hijacked some planes and flown them into various buildings in the USA. It was a real shock to the senses, how human beings can do such terrible things to one another is totally beyond my comprehension.

People say that they can remember where they were when certain things happened in their lives. Many can recall where they were, for instance, when they heard about the murders of JF Kennedy or John Lennon. As it happens I can't recall where I was when either of those two people died, but I can recall two others in great detail. I was in my lounge at home when I saw the news about the death of Elvis Presley on the telly and I was in the same room when my sister told me of the death of the great Harry Chapin.

And so the lovely day spent at Dawyck Gardens will, for me, always be associated with murder and mayhem.

On a brighter note, we spent the next day taking in some more of the Border's famous abbeys and I will tell you more about that in my next Scottish post.

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Rosslyn Chapel

Hi all,
Hope you had a good Christmas and the new year brings you equally good health and contentment.

In my last post about Scotland you may recall that an artist at Traquair House, suggested that if we appreciated the work of craftsmen, we ought to visit Rosslyn Chapel. It was September of 2001 and because it was before Dan Brown wrote the Da Vinci code, we hadn't heard of it and I guess most other people hadn't either.

Anyway, we were going through the list of places that we had in mind to visit whilst we were in the borders area and, during a moment of indecision, my wife suggested that we should go and have a look at the Rosslyn Chapel we'd been told about. It seemed like a good idea and we took a very pleasant drive out towards Edinburgh and only stopped once to let our dog stretch his legs. I parked the car in a layby on the side of a quiet lane and my wife and I were both taken in by a large bush that made up part of the hedge.
It was absolutely covered in tear drop shaped, red berries as you can see in the photo on the left. Now, if you've been following my tour of Scotland you will know that my wife and I love to visit gardens and, although we are not experts in all things horticultural, we can recognise most plants we see and know most of them by name.

In fact, boring as it may seem to some people, we always take a few reference books with us on holiday just in case we come across some flora or fauna we don't recognise. Anyway, we inspected the bush and even took a small cutting so that we could check it out in the reference books we'd left in our caravan at Pebbles.

Carrying on with our journey we eventually reached Rosslyn Chapel and found it was just as the man a Traquair House had described. We parked outside and had the place to ourselves, which is something I don't believe is possible since it has become the focus of so many books. I'm pleased that we discovered it before it became famous because it allowed us revel in the unique atmosphere that such places seem to generate.
I'm not particularly religious and neither is my wife, but there is something about churches and chapels that makes one feel very peaceful. Rosslyn Chapel was only small, but it seemed to have more carved stone work than some cathedrals we'd seen. The photo on the right is The Apprentice Pillar, which according to legend, was so well carved by the apprentice, that the master mason murdered him in a fit of jealousy.

Having been stunned by Rosslyn, we spent the afternoon touring the lovely countryside and called in at the little border town of Biggar, before returning to Peebles for the night

Back at the caravan we studied our books, but could not find any reference to the beautiful bush we'd seen. We had worked out that it was a type of berberis,but could not find the type. We would have to wait until we got home and maybe it would prove to be a worthy challenge for the Internet. I will tell you if we found out what it was in my next Scotland post. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas about the bush I'd be pleased to hear you suggestions. If you would just like to find out more about me, my books or writing services, Please click here.