News from Nowhere

- and back at work. Back to an impressive thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, and to evenings when it actually gets dark (by any other standards, these are the long summer evenings of the north, but after Shetland's white nights, darkness comes as a surprise).

The homeward journey was smooth and pleasant. The day was as sunny as that scarlet sunset had suggested, and we were tempted to take the coastal tourist route from Aberdeen to Edinburgh: but it felt like tempting fate, to blue all our time in hand on the beginning of the journey. Northlink ferries allow passengers to breakfast on board after docking, but even so we were on the road by nine, and by the time we were ready for a coffee break, we were in the Borders. Specifically, we were close to St Boswells, where we had lunched on the way north: but I was ready for something new, so we follwed a turning signposted 'Old Melrose Tea Rooms Bookshop' and found ourselves in a quadrangle of old farm buildings. One side of the square is the tea rooms, with tables outside; another is a vintage furniture shop; and upstairs, accessible from either, is a serious secondhand book shop. When we had explored all these things, there were signs offering a short walk and a viewpoint over the Tweed, so we did that:



So green! and trees! It's not true that there are no trees at all in Shetland; but there are not many, and they are not very big. For the record, we were already south of the Tweed at this point (though still comfortably within Scotland).

Other signs explained the history of Old Melrose: when I wrote about St Boswell that he was a monk at Melrose, I had not realised that the monastery was not on the site of the twelfth century abbey which now dominates the town, but a few miles away, in a loop of the Tweed. It is not actually on the Saint Cuthbert's way, but near enough, and important enough to the story of Cuthbert, to merit its own page on their website. We had avoided retracing our steps of earlier in the journey, but we had closed the loop nonetheless.

We thought of stopping for lunch in Belsay, but there was no room to park at the café, which we took as a sign they'd be too busy to serve us as well. So we went to the garden centre at Ponteland, which has a very reliable café (should you ever need to eat at Newcastle airport, this is worth knowing), picked up some supplies at Waitrose, and came home.

helenraven's post about the trip to Lindisfarne prods me into posting about the end of our week there, which was shaped even more than usual by the tides. Lindisfarne's a tidal island, accessible and inaccessible at times of day which shift as the days pass. This worked well for us on Tuesday, when we were able to dine out in Newcastle and still get back to our beds on the island. By the end of the week - well, I'll come to that.



On Wednesday we drove up Tweeddale, through Cornhill and Coldstream to Kelso. I love the Borders: the Highlands are more dramatic, but harsh and barren, between the rich green land to the south and the open lands and big skies to the north. The wet summer had left the fields an almost luminous green. Coldstream is a nice little town, and we picked up a leaflet with a guided walk - another time we might visit the museum.

We returned via Wark, because durham_rambler wanted to see the castle; and as we drove towards the village, a large mound of grassed over rubble did indeed dominate the road, but we were distracted by having to brake quite suddenly to avoid hitting a hare. We paused to poke around half-heartedly, and I think might have seen more, but not much more, if we'd made the effort. But it was late, so we headed home, braking rather less abruptly on the way out of the village to avoid a couple of pheasant out for a stroll, and drove through the receding tide onto the island.

The solstice was observed on Thursday: which is to say that some of us got up at half-past three and walked down past the castle, where we gazed at the total cloud cover and consulted our watches and eventually conceded that the sun was now as risen as it was going to be. I blame durham_rambler, who refused to get up: if the ritual is not observed, how can the sun be expected to sise? But there was some magnificently rosy pre-dawn cloud:



After which R. walked out to Emmanuel Head, and D. and I returned to the village by the lane between the fields, and the rest of the day passed in a haze of sleepiness and rain.

As did Friday. Too wet to do more than stroll round the visit, tide times too awkward to visit museums or other wet weather entertainments on the mainland. What could we do? We stayed home, read, did crosswords, may have opened a bottle or so - I'm not complaining.