Week 4

Here is the activities of the last week - bit quieter because of my ankle.

July 26 - Sunday - Dad went off to play golf at 6.30 and I stayed at the hotel till he returned at 10.30. We then drove off to the Scottish Borders to stay at Hawick (pronounced ‘Hoick’). On the way, we stopped at Peebles for lunch. We then drove through the Tweed Valley to Hawick - it was a beautiful drive. We stopped at a great BandB just off the main street. By this time, it had started raining (again) so we dragged out the umbrellas and went down to the pub on the main street for tea. The pub was a bit ordinary.

July 27 - Monday - The town of Hawick is not that interesting but the main reason we were there was that there were woollen mills which produced cashmere and I was ready to buy metres of fabric. But, alas, there was no material! A bit frustrating especially as one of the factories did sell it from their main factory about 1 1/2 hours from where we had been staying in Blairgowrie! So, I had to be content with buying a jumper. That night for tea, we found a pub in the next town which was a bit quaint. The meal was served in a room that looked as if it had been set up for a country wedding - the meal was delicious though.

July 28 - Tuesday - This morning we drove to Castle Howard, an historic house, north-east of York. The drive was through the Cleveland hills and York Moors which was spectacular. I have decided that it is a bit useless trying to catch the scenery on camera because it just doesn’t do it justice. Castle Howard is the house in the filming in the series and film of ‘Brideshead Revisited” so lots of splendid stuff in it. We then drove on to Harrogate where we stayed in a great BandB. We stopped here as it was a spa town that featured in the Georgette Heyer books that mum, Claire, Carmel and I used to devour. Mum stills reads them over and over again - she says she never remembers the plots anymore so it doesn’t matter that she re-reads them. It is a very elegant town so it was easy to walk around and admire the buildings.

July 29 - Wednesday - Tony went off to play golf at a course outside Harrogate and I went for a very, very slow walk around the town stopping for a scone and tea at Betty’s which is famous in York and Harrogate for their cakes etc. that night we strolled over to a pub for a meal - I was getting a bit tired of pub meals by this time…

July 30 - Thursday - in the car again and off to Romsey stopping at another big house, Woburn Abbey - we are really getting our money’s worth out of our memberships! We then drove on to Romsey and glad to be back again. We received a lovely welcome from Abigail. Solomon was here too as he is on holidays for the Summer. Next week, he and his mother are going on a 12 day cruise to the Canary Islands.

July 13, August 1 and 2 - these last 3 days have been quiet for me as I have been resting my foot. Tony has used his membership at his new golf club but hasn’t played in a proper competition yet so is getting a little frustrated but, at least, he played with 2 other fellows rather than hit 2 balls around - although this means he always wins!

and that is about it for this last week. We are off to Amsterdam for a week on Wednesday. We fly out of Southampton which is pretty handy to Romsey. We have booked an apartment which is supposed to have wifi so will see when we get there. We will be in contact with you if it works otherwise we will have to rely on McDonalds and it mightn’t be too often.

Love to all

mum xxx