Continuing with the Scottish September tour

 After Melrose we headed up to North Berwick, we visited last year and enjoyed ourselves so much that we decided that a return visit was necessary, Finding ourselves arriving too early to book  onto the campsite, we followed the directions for the air museum, expecting a small collection to look at and help us pass the time.

How wrong we were, this is a place that definitely need more time to explore the multiple builds and also to revisit the café ( excellent soup)

The National Museum of Flight houses more than 50 aircraft located on the site of the UKs best preserved second world war airfield, far more than we could see in the time that we had allowed.

                                                     Concorde, slightly more unusual angle.

Not the easiest place to take photos due to the close proximity of the planes but I tried my best.

I wouldn't like to work on this engine !!

A retired Red Arrow.

                               A nod to the history of the airfield, more to explore next time.

The other hall had so many planes so close together with spot lights that it became difficult to capture a whole plane but the detail on some was worth recording.

 We look forward to making a return visit next time we are around the east coast.

looking for the sheep at the Great Tapestry of Scotland

Well, we seriously underestimated the amount of time needed to take in the Great Tapestry of Scotland. Another visit is already on the cards for next year especially as we will be in the area having booked the campsite for next years music festival already.

My photos do not do the work justice so I'm going to find a couple of links and will post them at the end. Also, when faced with the sheer amount of embroidery, I decided to look for specific thing, mainly sheep!

These are just a few of the sheep spotted amongst the panels, all sides of life both current and historic were pictured, here are some of my favourites.

Looking at the different stitches and techniques, I am tempted to start embroidery again :-)

For further info and much better pictures, visit this site. The Great Scottish Tapestry    and there is an interesting collection of videos here covering the tapestry being displayed in different locations before ending up at its permanent home. These help show the sheer scale of the panels and the work of so many different embroiderers in Scotland

Melrose part two

 Four days in Melrose gave me plenty of time to explore my surroundings, there are a couple of National Trust gardens and I chose to visit Priorwood gardens between the rain showers. They have an honesty shop and a few books for sale. The shop had at least half a dozen varieties of apples along with fresh vegatables.

The garden is the only one in Scotland that was originally devoted to growing  flowers for drying, there are also wood land walks and an orchard although I was driven back by the rain I managed to spend some time looking at the flowers.

Another stroll around found me down by the river Tweed looking for the foot bridge

found it !

                                                          Chain bridge built in 1826

Slightly closer to town is the old rail station, the platform is accessed via an arch in the original station building that is now a casino.

The platform has been preserved and can be easily seen from the road. There originally was a plan to replace some of the track just in front of the platform but this may rely on both funds and younger people to join the local preservation society,

We will return to Melrose, I really want the cardigan in the last post :-) plus good cafes, excellent deli and comfortable campsite make it the perfect place for a post festival unwind.

Colours of Gala

 One of the advantages of Melrose , in addition to it being a beautiful place, is that you can travel by public transport to Galashiels which is home to the Great Scottish Tapestry but more about that in a future post,

As we stepped off the bus we came across our first piece of art, seriously, how can you not smile at these ?

The first one is called Dolly, presumably a reference to Dolly the sheep that was cloned the Roslin Institute, part of Edinburgh University in 1996

Just over the bridge we came upon a painted wall, steam engines always grab my attention as you may know.

Other walls were adorned with painting and graffiti adding colour to what could be a dismal day.

The last picture depicts Sir Walter Scott. 

A quirky statue of Robert Coltart was found in a small square, I especially like the little girl enjoying her sugary treat.

Walking up towards the town we notices that empty shops were displaying parts of the panels that make up the Tapestry.

I suspect that if we had taken the town trail, we may have found more to explore but we were heading to the home of the tapestry, a little unsure of what was on display. We were not disappointed but that's for another post.