Tapp's Travels

We have moved to Brandon Ford.  From our last site, we have broken all records.  We moved a total of SIX miles!  It’s complicated, but we had made a booking ages ago and the previous place was a late substitution.  We’ve just been trying to stay close-ish to Glasgow while still camping in Glenda’s favourite county.

That’s us and our view out the front window …

… ahh and with a sunny, breezy day it’s laundry time!  Say no more!

It’s also time for Sunday lunch at the Three Wheatheads at Thropton.

Being camped at the entrance to Ingram Valley, we had to have a walk alongside the Breamish River.  Well upstream of our ford (which is immediately outside the campsite) (Brandon Ford – hence the name of the site!).  However, we are still walking on more or less level ground – no hills!

We are only a few miles south of Wooler.  Wooler – famous for the Terrace Café and Border Tart.  No calories, I’m sure – well, slightly sure!

We have discovered that British caravanners and motorhomers have really taken to travelling with dogs.  Everyone seems to be joining in with the craze.  But not with single dogs.  They’ve all got two or even three on board.  On wet days, especially, it must be olfactorally challenging indoors.  Anyway, the field immediately in front of us has lots of sheep.  I saw this card while out trying to NOT shop.  It appealed to my sense of humour!

“That dog’s staying at the kennels next year!”

OK.  Time for another trip abroad.  We’ve often thought we’d like to stay at Melrose but we’ve never even been there.  We have to put that right.  First we headed to Kelso where Glenda sold one of her horses and its foal many years ago.  It’s a famous horse market town.

The first thing we came face to face with (after visiting “Country Corner”, a shop selling everything you could imagine to do with horses, dogs and the outdoor country life) was Kelso Abbey.  Strictly speaking, the ruins of the Abbey.

This had been a powerful monastery, founded by King David I in 1128 for Tironensian Benedictine monks who had relocated from Selkirk.  It became a wealthy and influential religious house, known for its spectacular architecture.  It was the site of the coronation of King James III in 1460.  Located close to the River Tweed crossing …

Door knockers around here often have a Scottish wildlife theme …

Beyond the Abbey we found the town hall on Horsemarket Street.

Leaving Kelso took us past the race course and Floors Castle (which can be seen in the far distance beyond the River Tweed above and below).

The castle is the centrepiece of the beautiful Roxburghe Estate.  It was constructed for the 1st Duke of Roxburghe, over 300 years ago.

Melrose was next up.  Another lovely small town.  Good for a cup of tea at the “Twelve Triangles”, a bakery named, apparently, for the twelve triangles of croissant dough that the owners would get from each batch of dough they made by hand. The Melrose location, which opened in 2023, is an expansion of the original Edinburgh bakery.  The Twelve Triangles can be seen behind the Mercat Cross …

The Mercat Cross was traditionally a symbol of the trading rites of Scottish market towns and villages.  A law passed by King William I (1165-1214) required that all goods for sale in burghs be presented at the “Mercat and Mercat Cross”.  This one is like the really-old-original-broom (the one which has had four new shafts and six new brush heads).  The five original steps at the base were replaced by the current octagonal base in the mid 19th century, the shaft was replaced in 1988 and the capital, in the form of a unicorn, in 1990.

The Melrose campsite turned out to be not our sort of site – typical Caravan Club.  Regimented spaces with limited outlook … and FULL!

But every town around here has to have an Abbey or two.  Melrose is no exception!  This is St Mary’s.  It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland and was the chief house of that order in the country until the Reformation.  (That’s twice in my life that I’ve heard of King David I!)

The night skies in this area of north Northumberland are really dark.  We are treated to superb nocturnal displays of millions of stars with the milky way clearly visible overhead.  This week, apparently, there are also six planets visible.

But, not easy to photograph without a tripod!

One night we had an “Aurora alarm”.  This event is also hard to capture on a phone!  Technically difficult and temporally challenging.  This was the view at 2.30 am!

At a more reasonable time, the dawns here can be pretty spectacular too …

And this is lovely weather for a visit to Foxton Golf Club for coffee …

… followed by a walk on the beach.

Another day, it was an Italian lunch at Lollo Rosso in Morpeth with university friends Kath and Dave.

We called into Heighley Gate nursery, only to discover that Christmas had arrived!

Further north, we prepare to visit Lindisfarne, Holy Island.  Check tide tables.  Four times.  Then a brief hesitation at a large warehouse structure enticingly named “Treelocate Europe”.  What’s that all about?  Well, having parked in the visitor parking area next to a full-size, green formula one car …

… we discovered that the place is not open to the public – and certainly not without a written invitation.  But after 20 minutes discussion with Annabelle, she relented and allowed us to wander about amongst all the trees, bushes and plants which had not been “located” yet.  It was absolutely amazing.  Here one can purchase a five metre tall flowering cherry, or a life-size olive tree …

… a miniature rhododendron …

… a bougainvillea in full flower …

… Or more or less any sort of tree or plant, really – provided one has a written invite to visit!  Absolutely amazing!  All constructed in this building!  Apparently, the massive floral displays and “living” walls in Changi airport have all been sourced in this corner of sleepy, rural Northumberland!

Now, back to the real world and Holy Island.

On the causeway …  check tide times again …

… and first glimpse of Lindisfarne Castle, a 16th-century castle much altered at the beginning of the 20th century by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

The island is also home to Lindisfarne Priory, founded by St Aidan in 635 AD. The existing ruins are the remains of the priory re-established in Norman times as a Benedictine monastery which came to ruin in 1536 under Henry VIII.

Arriving on the island, I was sent to check the printed tide tables once more.  To be sure, to be sure!  But we had managed to forget just how many tourists infest this island on a daily basis.  There are thousands of them (us)!  Just like last time.  We have seen the castle and priory on previous visits and we rapidly reach a decision to beat a hasty retreat.  There’s just time to squint through a few windows to see what the residents are preparing for lunch!  As we scarper from the island, we paused at a small parking area just off the access road at the Snook for a walk in the sand dunes.  There are two “dwellings” hidden here.  The first is known as Snook Tower, thought originally to be an old lookout tower.

The second building, Snook House, looks for all intents and purposes like any other domestic dwelling.

It has featured as DCI Vera Stanhope’s cottage in the television series “Vera”.  However, it was once the camouflaged top of a ventilation shaft for Scremerston Colliery some seven miles NW and very much on the mainland.  From Scremerston the coal seam dips down deep below Holy Island and out to sea. The old colliery closed in 1965.

In the Well House Coffee Shop in Belford we met a bloke who had recently moved from Holy Island to Belford.  He said they had become totally put off the islands.  The daily decent of millions of nosey parkers with half of them wandering on to their property and peering through the windows to check on their lunches.  He also said be careful of the traffic queues to get on or off the island.  Ironically, there was an article in the local rag the other day reporting on a particularly serious traffic jam on the causeway resulting from a tractor hitting the barriers on the nearby mainline level crossing!

That could have been VERY interesting when the tide turned!  (Closer inspection of the article showed it had actually occurred last August!)

On the way home we took a walk on the coastal path from Budle to the Bamburgh golf course.  That’s one golf course at which we are not non-members.  They won’t have us!

Now … who’s Bob?  That’s a VERY interesting question…