October – the eight month of the Roman calendar, the tenth of our Gregorian calendar, started with great disappointment. On the trail of an abandonded lead mine near Edin Hall Broch and armed with walkie talkies, rope and torches we ended up being torn to pieces on brambles, ripping my trousers on a barbed wire fence and falling into a burn. Following that we couldn’t find the geocache under a viaduct at loanhead – after having worked out the coordinates from various gravestones in the Loanhead cemetry, got lost on the trail to Roslin Glen, couldn’t get into Rosslyn Chapel with the filming for the Da Vinci Code ongoing, and finally found that Roslin Glen was closed at 5pm as we were fighting lack of diesel and daylight.
We returned the next day and parked in Roslin and walked through Roslin Glen, which was a wonderful walk along the river (although there were signs saying that the riverwalk was closed). Cara threw herself off a particularly steep section but managed to scabble safely onto a ledge and scramble back to the path (fortunately as we had no idea how we were going to get her). Wallace’s cave was inaccessible high up on a rocky face on the other side of a deep and fast moving river, but there were lovely views of Hawthornden Castle high up on a cliff. We bagged two caches enroute but still couldn’t find the viaduct cache, even though we were all dangling from parts of the viaduct.
October 3rd saw the annular eclipse (only 52% of which we could see from Scotland). If we had been in Spain we would have the seen the entire thing (we missed it in Shetland last time thanks to Scottish cloud cover) and the side effect of the circular sunbeams
Tested out our Kelly Kettle and origami picnic set in the garden all set for the assault on the Three Brethern and ice cream shop in Innerleithen. It has to be said that the trial went much better than trying to light it on top of the Three Brethern in a howling gale – with no Zippo lighter we gave up and tramped to Traquair across the windswept Southern Upland Way limping to the ‘Evil Dead’ like Minchmuir Bothy built by the Airborne Initiative ‘Chancers’. It was disappointing that we didn’t find any WayMerks but there are other sections of the Way to explore.
We had left Stuart at the Tibbie Tamson geocache because he wanted to head back to the car park as he was going to drive to Traquair to pick us up – he did however get crashed into by a car full of rugby players in Selkirk. He met us by driving up some of the Southern Upland way at Traquair and watched Donnie Darko on my new PSP whilst we struggled down to meet him to inspect the damage. Our car had a bumper scratch but the Fiat was badly damaged and could not be driven away.
And then the rain fell – ‘And Lo the Lord hath flushed out the sinners from Hawick’. There are cars floating down the misnamed high street of Hawick and through shop windows – ironically the Home Improvement Centre was wrecked as its wall collapsed under the force of the Teviot. A months worth of rain in 24 hours – the fishermen are happy, our pond is full and our stream is in spate but, being on top of a hill, if we get flooded I suspect there will be more people in far serious difficulties.
Hotel Five November One (H5N1) – Avian Flu has now surrounded my next destination – Bulgaria. The advice seems to be that I should not visit poultry farms nor bring back live poultry and definitely not go around slaughtering and defeathering them, nor should I eat dishes made with fresh duck blood (need to consult the Bulgaria/English dictionary for that phrase).
Solved Petals Around The Rose and am now a Potentate of the Rose. Started learning to play the Djembe drum at the Village Hall in Smailholm, met an african person in the small village (we don’t have many africans in Smailholm) so wound down the window and said ‘This is a long shot but do you know where the African Drumming Wokshop is?’. Great fun and my palms are still tingling. Smailholm also boasts the Hundy Mundy folly and a new natural burial site.
The new Wallace and Gromit film – the Curse of the WereRabbit has a side effect – quoting the Head Cheesemonger of Teddington Cheese – “As I’m sure you are aware, the demand for Stinking Bishop is phenomenal at the moment” – however I managed to secure some and it is simply delicious with a cup of espresso, whilst lusting after my new love The Seqair Falco – designed 1955 and called the Ferrari of the air and to go with it the Fortis Pilot watch – Xmas is coming…
