Some of you who are reading my post will probably be scratching you head thinking what she is doing!! The order of the places visited is not making sense…. Well here is the secret… They are in order of how I remember them, not the order of being visited, so don't try to make sense of them just enjoy them.

East Kilbride

On a driving trip like this, the potential for a GPS moment of frustration is very high. This was one of those moments. I have family living in East Kilbride on my mother's side. We are not able to catch up with them on this trip as the timing is not good; they were in Spain on holidays. Pat and I decided to look around their town anyway as it is on the way to Stirling where we are staying for a few days.

The GPS give us the route to follow so we followed it except the street exit on the roundabout we were supposed to take was closed due to road works. This is the second time on this trip that road works have stopped us from going where we needed to go. We tried to re-route the GPS but it kept sending us in circles back to the roundabout.

In the end pat just said no more and just followed the traffic. It seems we kept missing a detour sign that was slightly hidden. Silly us we didn't see it until the last turn through the round about. The detour sent us to the back road to Stirling. All's good that ends well. There is no wasted time just more sites to see….over and over J

Hadrians Wall

We have not allowed a lot of time here to look around as it is a 84km walk to see all the sections of the wall still standing. There is an old Roman fort ruin here in a field. The builders of the wall and these types of forts really knew their stuff. It is such a beautiful little place with a river flowing through the centre of it.

Pat and I walked onto the bridge and watched the flow of water for quite a while before heading back to the car. The historic value of these places can really do your head in, when you start looking into it.

Great Selkeld

Pat and I are heading to our accommodation in Great Selkeld…… Driving, driving, driving getting deeper and deeper into what seems like nowhere … until we finally found this peaceful little town. The Highland Drove Inn… a Beautiful old inn but it was closed when we pulled up. As it was still day-light we knocked on the door.

A door further down the building opened and a lady said it would be another hour before they were open and that we could go into the back garden if we wanted to wait. Once they opened we were shown to our room on the top floor. The stair case and hallway were really narrow and warped. (Just as you would expect in a building as old as this one.) They had refurnished the room and also put in a gabled window that opened out to the front of the Inn. The vista was magic.

Pat decided that we were going to take a walk around the town. (Note I said PAT DECIDED WE would take a walk…. That's because if left up to me I would become a sloth and do nothing but watch TV, read a book or just go shopping. Even when I really want to see and do everything . I can be a shocker so many years ago we made a few rules.

No1. He would keep me moving when we were on holidays.

No2. No going to sleep when we are driving somewhere unless I have been on that particular road in the direction we are travelling.

No3. The suit case is not the Tardis, you can only buy a limited amount of stuff to take home.

So when he says walk I walk... only a couple of Blocks he says.... It starts nice and easy then..... it is straight up hill for 500m (beautiful view mind you) and then about a 3.5 km walk around the block. He forgot to mention that it was that long around. With all the driving it is good to get out and stretch our legs. Along the edge of the road we found wild raspberries growing.

We had tea downstairs in the dining room where the food was fresh and beautifully cooked. Afterwards we stayed in the bar talking to the owners and some of the locals. After a few drinks (drank to stumps) we went upstairs to bed or should I say I helped him up the stairs.