The Fortean Times had a letter about the lost village of Polwarth near Duns, so at the weekend I decided to have a look and go around the other churchyards and places of interest in Berwickshire.

Started off at Greenlaw with its wonderful Town Hall, sadly crumbling and disused, and its church which used to be a jail. It started to rain but the church was locked (most of the churches I visited were locked, so much for encouraging tourism, dry visitors or even worship).

Polwarth was at the end of of a country road marked by a large ROAD CLOSED sign across it. Since I could squeeze past in the Audi TT I headed on. No one was keeping me from a mystery. I reached the church with its stone step stile, and on clambering over as soon as I was in the churchyard I heard singing. It went on for a wee while then stopped. I expected it was something in the church, but the church was all locked and through the windows I could see it was empty. The church has a bell inside for frightening away evil spirits. At the end of the graveyard is a small gate with steps leading nowhere and with a large tree, which creaked and had the sound of creatures running up and down it, although I could see nothing.

The Fortean Times story mentioned that the villagers disappeared and that one was found with her legs in water in a trance saying that fairies had tricked her and she couldn’t move until others came to rescue her. Incest and poor drainage seemed to be other possibilities for the disappearance of the village, which had been famous for its wedding dances around the thorn trees and its fiddlers without whom a wedding could not take place. I stepped over the ‘fairy gate’ and down the steps. Under the tree I could feel my hackles rise and I decided to not join the ranks of the disappeared and become Mike the Rhymer and so I stepped back over the fairy gate into the churchyard. It started to rain and I hurried back over the stile and left Pagan Polwarth in a hurry.

Near there is the ‘Foul Fords’ which is a classic ghost story of men walking between Longformacus and Greenlaw across the moors and always ending up dead – after seeing the dead arise on horseback. The foulness could atest to a hallucogenic gas but who can tell – these are all from very old books which can only be opened 2/3rds through to stop the binding being destroyed. The moors do look pretty spooky though.

Passed through Gavinton, a planned village with a huge church for a village and a gravestone with a stone pigeon, then onto Allanton for lunch. I was the only customer in the friendly Allanton Inn and they kindly got their chef to delay his own lunch to cook me a delicious chicken dish washed down with a refreshing pint of ale. They mentioned that everyone was at the rally, which I took to be the annual Jim Clark Rally, but that they had a dining room full of paramedics that evening. Thinking nothing of the fact that they close most of the Berwickshire roads for it – I set off to my next appointment at Edrom.

Edrom was closed, not just the church – the rally was going through it and to reach the church I had to run across a live rally course lined with paramedics looking for work before their dinner at the Allanton Inn. The church was of course closed, but has a delightful arch and some ornate gravestones.

I popped into Duns where their was a land rover parked with a tyre advertising ‘25 years of muck spreader hire’. I decided from my map to visit Fogo and this was where I managed to merge into a road which was part of the rally and found myself in between two fast moving rally cars, just had to put my foot down as there was no way off the single track road. This went on for a few miles until we reached a timing gate, which I roared through as the rally cars turned in and I managed to turn off at Fogo to visit its church. The rain was pelting down now and I was so grateful that Fogo Church was actually open. The church has stairs outside leading the gentry up to balconies so they can pray above the riff-raff.

Returning to Kelso I stopped off at Ednam church, which was naturally closed, a place of music with Abide By Me and Rule Britannia written there, and outside Ednam and Kelso is a large obelisk commemorating James Thompson. the poet whose work ‘The Seasons’ Handel set to music. There is a great view across the Kelso racecourse to the Eildons from there.

After a Sunday swim and fish purchase from the market, Stuart and I headed off to the Crook Inn at Tweedsmuir (a starred entry in the Good Beer Guide). After an hour and a half drive, with Stuart bleating for food around Stobo Castle, we arrived to find that the delightful Art Deco pub has been closed down. We tried Broughton which has a brewery but no pub and reached Biggar which has the runner up fish and chip restaurant in the Seafish awards, Anstruther having won it. A delicious meal with interesting wall posters telling you how good fish and chips are nutritionally and the toilet has a poster telling you how to wash your hands.

We left for some culture – a geology exhibition in Peebles (fairy stones) was closed (are these the same people who run the churches?), so we visited Villeneuve Wines instead as a treat, and after a white chocolate ice cream in Innerleithen we reached St Ronans Well (so named only because Walter Scott renamed the less poetic ‘Doo Well’ to it) and found the well was closed for restoration by the Beechgrove Garden. We supped the free water and enjoyed the exhibition with drawings of St Ronan tripping up the devil and a 1918 tank (war not water) in Innerleithen high street.

Returning to Kelso the rally was still going and they were roaring out of the square. Alasdair went head over heels (this time not in love) after hitting a pothole on his bike and came back covered in bandages.

Kim’s father finally returned from Madeira and after a post mortem the funeral could proceed as no one was getting arrested and he wasn’t required as exhibit A. The funeral was at the crematorium in Dundee and since I was as welcome as a condom seller at a Catholic Mass we spent the night at our friends in Perthshire (he is high up in Scottish Water which explains why he only has bottled water in the house, as well as an excellent cellar). His kids think I am somewhat bizarre, perceptive little blighters, so I tend to play to that and was wearing my particularly brash Hawaiian shirt. It was when Kim asked ‘what shirt did you pack for the funeral?’ that it became clear that this was the only shirt I had with me, so in an unexpected fit of respect we popped into Perth on the morning of the funeral with a stinking hangover (remember that excellent cellar).

Thus with dark shirt but with a rebellious bright red and white striped tie from Next and what looks like a stab vest in case things turned out less than perfect with the family, we raced along the roadworks and heavy traffic (using google maps on the mobile to find that the crematorium is near something called Playtime so if we were late as usual at least we could blame Google). Whistling ‘I’m getting buried in the morning’ we entered the crematorium car park to find complete chaos as everyone is vying for the remaining parking space.

I managed to be both respectful and annoying by pinching the front pew place where the overtly Christian Auntie Betty was angling – but I can still move when I need to. The coffin had come from Madeira and was ornate and splendid I crossed myself in the traditional ’spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch’ motion without thinking, however, the coffin was also incompatible with the funeral bearers who struggled to get it onto the runners and almost dropped it at one point. Dull hymns, irrelevant bible readings from what we thought was a gay minister and a splendid rendition of the irreligious ‘I vow for thee my country’ played at far too slow a pace and with mourners singing out of frequency and amplitude – I wish I had recorded it. There was a tribute mumbled to the half deaf congregation and then the coffin disappeared down below into the flames (not too sure about the symbolism of that) and in my prime position I also had to lead the mourners out through the door – which must have pleased the family no end.

Kim had dressed in a lovely pink top whose buttons were secured with extra thread, after an earlier incident, to handle the stress from her heaving breasts, she still had a queue of mourning men staring at her chest saying ‘My, how you have grown since I saw you last’. People generally just stared at my tie and said – ‘ah so you are Mike I have heard all about you’ before skulking away before I wrapped them in my adamantine chains. Kim’s sister managed to spill the entire contents of a glass of red wine over her new best friend Alistair’s jacket and the sterile golf restaurant (it was less of a wake, more of a fast asleep affair) seemed to prefer not serving Kim with the meal she had chosen that obviously their chef was going to have – but not reckoning on her peristence he dined on something else that evening.

We met the interesting, and well hidden, percentage of Kim’s family – an archaeologist from Skipton who seemed amazed that I had heard of the Skipton Building Society and who was heading down to Great Orme after my recommendation of the Bronze Age mines; The captain of a ship moored off the Brazilian coast which does a dyno-rod operation for the oil industry and who loved geology, sailing and hill walking in the Lake District; Kim also had an Auntie who went to the dark side and married an Uncle from the Bahamas, they were in Italy and so popped in for the weekend – both focused entirely on fitness and travelling which they combine by organising the Olympics, and dissuading us from visiting them with tales of how the Bahamas have wells and cess pits, which unfortunately mix at times depending on the water table, and the worsening hurricanes which leave them with a variety of pets who are blown in to their ruined gardens.

We also met a structural engineer, and asked what he thought of the Forth bridge. He replied that it was fine and would last for years, to our relief after all the scaremongering in the newspapers. When Kim added ‘what about the lorries though?’ he suddenly frowned and said ‘Oh you mean the road one, oh no that one is fucked!’ He seemed to like the tunnel idea though. Today the SNP have said they will be dropping the bridge tolls in a shrewd move that might mean that the bridge won’t be there by the time the legislation goes through to remove the tolls, I wonder if tunnel tolls are included.

We spent the evening relaxing back in Perthshire exchanging funeral tales, drinking wine, listening to our favourite funeral music (some of it on Kim’s phone) and blowing up balloons.

It is a real pity that you only really meet extended families at weddings, christenings and funerals – there should be another excuse that doesn’t require a church.

May started with Kim away to be with her mother and problems with Alasdair reaching a head, causing me to see the doctor and get my blood pressure checked – it was through the roof with my LDL (affectionately called Lidl’s) and HDL (affectionately called Sainsbury’s) balance not being good. Alasdair was told that perhaps spending a year with granny (any granny) would be a good idea. That seemed to get him back into some sense of normality and he went off for a weekend to granny.

I drove him up with the overall plan of going kayaking on Loch Lomond. Things didn’t start out well with bank holiday traffic and a tractor on the Borders roads, and got worse with an hours delay stuck in a queue to get over the Forth Road Bridge (which was naturally down to single lane north specially for the bank holiday). We stopped off at Kathellan for some lunch then reached granny’s place (albeit with no granny or psycho sister to greet us) whereupon I took my trusty google map printout and headed to Loch Lomond. Things went really downhill here, I am not sure where it went wrong but went wrong it did. I eventually reached Arrochar at the top of Loch Lomond at 6pm and decided to try to find accommodation (yes on a bank holiday with no bookings) and got the last room in the Village Inn at Arrochar.

A couple of pints of real ale and a fillet steak and wine and I was all ready to party whereupon who should be in the bar but a lesbian hen night so we ended up squeezing into cabs and going god knows where with the dire warning from the barman – ‘there will be a stabbing tonight with this lot’ – fortunately there wasn’t although I did wake up the next morning without my credit card (it was handed in as I had dropped it in the bar).

Luss is where ‘Take The High Road’ is filmed and is a lovely little village perched on Loch Lomond, with an impressive church and great views. There is a cycle path all the way up the loch which looks like fun and at Firkin Point there is a great view North and South.

I found the Berwickshire Kayak Club, who don’t kayak in Berwickshire and are based in Roxburghshire. They had been kayaking the day before but it was too windy today. I pointed out that I wasn’t a tent kind of guy and more a hotel kind of guy and there seemed to be some agreement there since the night before had been windy and wet and miserable. I drove up to Rowardennan with spectacular views on the West Highland Way and wandered around until I was nearly blown over and decided there was no place like home.

Kim put Ali on a train at Leuchars and I picked him off the Berwick train (which he made at Waverley with seconds to spare), filled him up with Chicken Lemon as I Tandooried, and drove back to beat the sunset before the vampires came out – seeing some chap emerge like a zombie from a field carrying a gun – we drove a bit faster at that point.

So now it is back to a diet of plant stanols, red wine (2 glasses to raise HDL levels), potassium rich bananas (to neutralise sodium in the body and lower blood pressure by 10% in a week), exercise plans and a low salt high fresh fruit lifestyle change. And to ensure instant weight loss – a haircut. The hairdresser wielding her number 2 shaver started shearing me and then came the unexpected exchange between Hairdresser (hd) and myself (mf)

hd>Are You Stuarts Dad?
mf>Yes are you Steph’s aunt?
hd>Yes!
mf>So did you used to be a man?
hd>No I have always been a woman?
mf>Right so that is the other aunt.

I realised that this interrogation with someone wielding her razor was probably not a good strategy.

And lo the lamb of Maurice spewed forth again – another set of twins, both well. And now 5 lambs are regularly escaping to the next field traversing the horse jumps to munch on the grass there – they have been self selected for the abattoirs. Mysteriously Flora the highland cow is also escaping through a gate that is closed with a spring latch – so either she is very smart and strong (she can be) – or someone is letting her out. The last arrival (Number 6) was a wee black lamb called Sambo McGoohan, and what a cutie she is and like her namesake has tried to escape already.

The noise of whirling helicopter blades led Ali and I out the back window and saw an impressive display of low level Chinook flying

Torrential rain meant we had to spend Saturday driving across to the west (normally much wetter than our sunbaked east coast) to find the Lake District basking in sunshine. Clambered up Catbells and fell down a muddy track on the descent so ate my delicious lamb pie in the Mill Inn looking like a tramp. Still all this effort has seen my blood pressure reduce dramatically, although Ali produces the odd spike with his insistence on ignoring his advisors entirely and pursuing his ‘Romeo and Juliet as directed by David Lynch’ affair.