Sunday 31st May Day 10 Gretna and Dunfries Yesterday was yet another fascinating experience! Of Course!! My Galloway Cycling Experience Buoyed up by my cycle outing of Friday, albeit a limited one, I decided to embark on a 'tour' of Galloway. To be more precise, a journey through the byways of a rural area to the south of Lockerbie, a roughly circular, even rugby ball shaped, trundle along the narrow roads between Gretna -Annan-Lockerbie. The wind had dr...

Friday 29th May Day 8 Today has two episodes: Episode 1: AM With bad weather promised we decided to visit a museum. Deep in the heart of Galloway lies the Devils Porridge Museum. What a name! In 1915, with shells in great shortage and the 1st World War going badly, a new scheme was launched in Galloway. This scheme was a huge new institution, or factory, spread over as much as 10 miles and employing something like 20,000 people, mainly, young women. ...

Thursday 28th May 2015 Gretna Oh! to be in Scotland when the spring is here!! But it's cold and wet and windy and more is promised: except that it does not arrive and we see skies of blue with lots of scudding clouds. It was on this basis that we chose to go to Carlisle and take the train to Settle, part of Meryl's birthday present which, of course, I could not forget. How to get there? Given that there was a bus stop outside the campsite and that we co...

Tuesday 26th May Day 5 A quiet day sitting around at 76 Sharoe Green Lane admiring the work of 3 or 4 northern boys installing solar on the roof. Now 16 panels give 220 watts each, a little more than ours. With some new wiz technology they are also more efficient. The panels were installed in about 4 hours and by 4 pm power was being generated! As a result we went out to eat at a local pub/eatery near our camp site and it was OK; eg reasonably tasty, not...

Monday 25th May Day 4 Preston Sour taste and real annoyance filled the mouth as we awoke. Never coming to Preston again, I swore. The day was taken up with Golf , for me and Jeremy decided to rub salt into those wounds by playing with his usual verve. He plays of 18 (bandit, and bandit again!) and so from the start of our round, shows a level of skill better suited to a much lower handicap. After 9 holes he has 23 points: yes correct, 5 under! By the 13th h...