Jeremiah Watt

THE GROUP AS WE PREPARE TO LEAVE MELVILLE CASTLE IN THE AM.

The night at a Castle had been consummated and we are ready to get on the road and see what lay in store for us all, the day was bright and one of the first to at least begin with bright prospects, so we got our Swedish metal suppository headed down the British roadways to find out……………….?

The first stop did not take us too much further down the road, some 8 miles to the Melrose Abbey, a place of immensity, an imposing stone and artistic architecture where it is said that Robert the Bruces heart is buried. How it comes to be that a mans heart can be buried in one place and his body another……………is well, a story. Robert the Bruce was the man given credit for handing Scotland her independence from English tyranny by way of the sound drubbing he gave the English at the battle of Bannock Burn. At that point Robert rose in stature by heaps within Scottish eyes, you could say there was a seething hatred for the rule of England. And yet before Robert the Bruce would come to his end the rule of the world would be shaken by a war of a different sort. This war would be fought on soil far from home and for reasons much different than home rule, this was a rule of religious doctrine. And due to health and age Robert the Bruce could never join those he called his countrymen in the Crusades to his south. So in the stead of his body and weapons, he opted to have his heart cut out upon his death and sent to be buried in Jerusalem as a show of support for all of Britain in the battle that raged. The heart only made it as far as Gibraltar, and never to Jerusalem. The heart, packed in an ornate carved wooden chest, its bearer having been killed, was then carried back to Melrose Abbey a religious edifice that the Bruce loved. His body in the meanwhile is buried beside that of his wife in far off Bannock Burn.

SAME MELVILLE

BRIDGE BUILT IN THE LATE 1770'S

BRIDGE DETAILS

BY the time we have done the tour, read the plaques and what not it is getting close on too chow time so we stroll the streets of Melrose and find a great Butcher Shop with a great selection of pies/tarts and or Pasties as they are so commonly called. Now these come in a great selection of flavours ie: Sausage and Cheese, Bacon and Mushroom, Steak and Tatties, Leeks,Neeps and Kidney, Pork and Stilton, Pork and Mushroom………and on and on. The pies range from the philo type pastry folded over the fillings, to more of a tart shell pastry that is then filled with the selection. SO, on this day I choose the oddest item I could find, that being a Pork Sausage topped with Apple Glaze and chunks of fruit. I just knew that this odd ball was going too send me into the “Darren Reflex”, which it has come to be called. After the lunch shopping, we strolled down the street to a group of benches and sat outside to eat ………..WOW, I know I have used it before but this is just astoundingly good. We had all chosen something, and shared the tastes amongst each other. What a fine treat, along with a few Fanta’s and we are gassed up and ready to Rock&Roll.

Next stop, some 35 mile sdistant is the huge Jedburgh Abbey, built in 1024 and of immense scale not quite equal to that of St.Andrews but close in some respects. The top of the arched vaulted roof is 80 feet at its center. The columns are larger diameter and of a different and more complex construction technique. Sadly it was once again time to get back on the roads that would take us further down the road.

IN THE TINY TOWN OF MELVILLE, LOOKING DOWN ANY ONE OF THE STREETS WOULD HAVE BEEN EQUALLY AS QUAINT.

MELROSE ABBEY

MELROSE ABBEY

MY BEST WORK SO FAR, HAS BEEN MY CHILDREN.

MELROSE ABBEY

THE SKYLINE VIEW OVER MELROSE, EVERY WATER SPOUT ON THE ABBEY WAS OF A DIFFERENT ANIMAL

JUST ONE OLD CITIZEN OF MELROSE WHOM AHD SEEN HIS FILL OF TOURISTS.

While driving we noticed a sign that took us to an Roman Aquaduct, build in 987 and still standing today, quite a testimony to the workmanship of the day. We also passed this long span bridge of 425 feet length and 130 feet height over the river Tyne I think it was. This bridge was built in 2006………………just kidding, it was built in 1774.

We head now into the Cumberland region of the country and in amongst the sheep covered hills. What a spectacular area this is, we had some sunshine thru the broken cloud cover and it made for pictures that are much more vivid. In many places the sheep are open range grazing and therefore on the road. Just my opinion, but I think that America could stand to re-trace her driving steps a wee bit, and harken back to those days when livestock ruled in the countryside in which they should be expected. Where road side ditches are not 60 feet in width and covered in foam rubber so you cannot possibly get hurt if you run your own car afowl, over here the ditch is often only 6” past your car mirror and it is not a ditch but a rock wall. Another amazing thing is roadside parking and or construction work. Over here it seems to be legal to just park your car where-ever, and if the roadside is real wet, that also means that often the car is almost fully in the lane which it has come to stop. You do not complain, nor sit there honking your horn and winging, you simply buck-up, and pass the car when it is safe to do so. But no place is it more amazing than at a place where road work is being done, which NEVER has a wasted effort flag man at each end of the zone, and seldom has a sign warning you of the eventuality of a road work zone, and was never a problem. Can I finish my rant by saying that the American driver is solidly spoilt and likely to never improve a tad.

CAN YOU TASTE IT.......................UMMMMM, SO GOOD

ONE OF THE BEST RIGHT THERE IT IS.

The way thru Cumberland led us by the famous wall, built for Emporer Hadrian to mark the northern most point of Roman occupied England. Today that same Hadrians Wall follows very closely the defining line between England and Scotland. And now I will tell you the rest of the story, as it goes just like this. Jeremiah is not a TV sort of guy, but he sure likes his movies and does not miss very many. You should know that for the rest of this to make sense. We are rolling along on a very narrow lane/road, keep in mind that on a road like this you seldom have a dividing line, no shoulder markers, just Blacktop or Bitumen as they call it……….and each side of the road will be lined with a rock wall that clip your mirrors if you do not pay attention. In other cases the road will be lined with a hedge, very thick and dense, they often call it Yew Hedge, or Gorse Hedge. With out trying to embellish this to much, the hedge has a groove in it where the mirror line of cars lays, matter of fact the side of the hedge that faces the road has a CAR SHAPE to it. We are rolling along and every so often we top out and see some splendid countryside. And on one such occasion, both my boy and I are looking out the same side of the car and we immediately recognized a location that had to have been used in the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood Price of Thieves…………..without a doubt baby, just had to be.

So we pull in about a mile down the road to what looks like a State Game Warden sort of place, and my intention was to go in and ask if we could hike back to the narrow gap we had seen…………….but while walking to the office area, I passed a Land Rover and noticed a decal on the door of a Rover that I had seen before. Yes, yes that’s it, about 6 years ago my friend Randy Rieman brought a fellow around to visit and he was a Pipe Player whom had just done a show at the Elko Poetry Gathering. As it turns out his name

THERE WERE LINES OF FOLKS AT TIMES WAITING TO GET INOT THIS SMALL TOWN BUTCHER SHOP

JEDBURG ABBEY

JEDBURG ABBEY INTERIOR SHOT OF THE ARCHES THAT WOULD HAVE LINED THE ACTUAL SANCTUARY NOT THE OUTSIDE WALLS

is Andrew Millar and he lived a little further north than this location and did work with this Park System. Well asking this sort of broke the ice for us, and we then got the full Monty on the Sycamore Gap that we had seen in Hadrian’s Wall. As it turns out it is indeed the very same location used in the movie, one in which Kevin and Morgan save a young boy who climbs a tree to escape the jaws of a dog, and then Kevin proceeds to kick the tail of three or four guys…………..you know the scene, if not then rent it and watch it. Some fun details, first the actual tree is a Sycamore, and not the Oak that Robin makes reference to. So to get around the small tree details, the crew wired Oak branches to the Sycamores lower branches so the all leaves readily visible would indeed be that of Oak. Another detail that we learned later from some of the other locals, was that it was cold during the shoot and “Kevy just coud’nt stop is’wingin about et all, cood’e”

Hadrian’s Wall, is 73 miles in total length, laid out with out the aid of any modern techniques to establish a strait line, and these Romans laid a strait line right across the narrowest part of this island…………and how did they do it. The wall varies from 5 to fifteen feet tall art places, it runs from 4 feet to fifteen feet in thickness, and to top it all of, there is a small fortification built every mile along the wall for guard posts and beacon fires etc. The fortifications at each 5 mile point are very large in over all layout. We hiked a good 20 minutes back along the wall so we could take our picture at this same spot were a Roman Emperor had once stood as well as a couple of Hollywood celeb’s.

MOM AND DARREN STANDING AT THE HEAD END OF THE OLDEST GRAVE IN THE ABBEY, MEMORY IS FAILING ME AND MY WIFE IS SLEEPING AS I SIT HERE AND WORK SO I THINK IT DATES 1022

JUST A EXTRA SMALL COUNTRY LANE WE TOOK TO SEE WHERE IT WENT AND HOW NARROW THEY COULD MAKE ONE............BELIEVE ME THEY MAKE SO THAT THEY CAN SCRATCH BOTH SIDES OF THE SAME CAR, NARROW.

LOOKING EAST OUT OVER SOME SECTION OF THE CUMBERLANDS, MY GOD WITH THE SUNSHINE WE HAD, AND THE COLORS IT WOULD BE HARD NOT TOO KNOW GOD EXISTED.

We are headed for Carlisle and a bed for the night. Our stay tonight is at an official Hotel. And it has been our worst since we arrived, quite a bit below the Hostels we have undertaken as well. Just a road side truck stop is all, with average torn apart rooms and leaky showers……….but hey it only cost us 65 quid so we cannot complain.

Supper tonight was an accident again, as we drove around in downtown Carlisle we kept getting sent by this one particular Greek Restaurant as if by divine providence. Finally on our fifth pass, I made the executive decision that we will just by god eat right here………..to an exclamation from the back seat that this would be all Lamb and Feta Cheese…………DAD!!!!!!! As it turned out once again the kids are very pleasantly surprised at how good a new taste can be………….poor Darren. He had to choke down a couple of black olives and cucumbers, but thought that the Kebab was just fine. Instead of eating desert at the Resturant, we drove down to the local grocery store, which is quite different that what we are used to in both size and selection. We bought some chocolate bars that we can no longer get in USA or Canada., made tea in the room and went to bed.

Good Night and God Bless

A FIELD OF POPPIES THAT WE HAPPENEND BY IN THE EAST CUMBERLANDS DISTRICT.

THE CUMBERLANDS HAVE AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF STACKED ROCK WALL SUH AS THIS. QUITE LITERALLY THERE MUST BE THOUDSANDS OF MILES OF IT IN TOTAL. iI WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHATA RUNNING TONNAGE IT WOULD BE FOR A 1/4 OR HALF MILE LENGHT AND THEN DO THE MATH TO SEE A TOTAL????

AT THE SYCAMORE GAP, IT IS FLANKED BY A STEEP ROCK ESCARPMENT OF SOME 200 FEET.

LOOKING DUE WEST OUT OF SYCAMORE GAP

SYCAMORE GAP, AND MY OWN THREE CELEBRITIES STANDING AT THE BASE OF THE SYCAMORE TREE.

ALL OF US AN HADRIAN'S WALL AT ABOUT THE SAME LOCATION AS KEVIN WOULD HAVE BEEN STANDING WHEN THE BATTLE BROKE OUT

FURTHER NORTH NOW AND CLOSER TO CARLISLE

Good Night and God Bless