writing fifty: adventures everyday and extraordinary
Breakfast with Boris: there’s a thought to make you shudder. The ubiquity of TVs in public places is a regular complaint of mine; and a screen with the loon in question was not what we wanted as we ate our croissants and eggs (not simultaneously; we’re not savages!) the following morning. There he was, though. We chatted a bit with another pair of walkers who were going as far as Kirk Yetholm today “though we might go further”. All the guidebooks were very clear that there was nothing but hills between Kirk Yetholm and Hethpool (where we were staying in the only available rooms), so why tell us that? What’s all that about?
St Cuthbert rolled his eyes as we viewed yet another abbey from a distance, through railings; Jedburgh Abbey, this time. We managed to be both late and early for the bus, having sprinted through town to buy lunch (our bus sweeping past us as we sped) only to wait three quarters of an hour with Betty at the bus stop for the next service to “Gala”. Betty told us all about her dead collie, what it was like to have ten cats, and what Aunty Bunty had said about it all. I’ve always had the kind of face that people tell their life story to at bus stops; this time was no exception. Betty was warm, garrulous and very Scottish. I hadn’t heard the name Bunty since my Granny died. It was strangely nice.