We stopped at the House of Bruar on the way down.
It is just as well that we did not have a fortune, because we would have spent one on lots of things that looked lovely, but of which we have no need whatsoever.
Instead we went into the Food Hall and bought some things to eat for breakfast.
I can promise you, until you have eaten whisky-smoked prawns in oil you have never known gastronomic joy.
We liked them so much that we went back in and bought some more for later.
We bought some gin truffles and whisky fudge as well, but decided that they did not have enough gin and whisky in to be nice, and that our own are nicer, although they do not come in such a beautiful wrapper, which is, after all, mostly what you are paying for. The fudge was remarkably unsatisfactory, because it tasted wonderful, but dissolved in your mouth leaving you without a feeling of having eaten anything and longing for more, whilst having put on half a kilo of cellulite in the process.
We ate it anyway.
We could have strolled around there all day, soaking up the sun and watching the dogs charge about, but we were absolutely nowhere near home, and it was already long past two in the afternoon.
We loaded ourselves up, reluctantly, and set off again, accompanying the long journey with the Sherman Brothers’ Songbook, which for those who have never listened to it, incorporates such all-time classics as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Feed The Birds. The latter is one of my all-time favourite songs, you can play it at my funeral, although it seems a bit of a waste if I am not there to listen.
We had to stop in an enormous queue of traffic around Glasgow, and had to sit in it for ages, waiting whilst the police cleared a terrible accident off the motorway. I always feel guilty if I start being impatient about this sort of delay, because it is somebody else’s dreadful disaster, but today I did not mind in the least, because we were in the camper. We made cups of tea and ate biscuits and occupied a very happy hour discussing ways in which we could build our own prawn-smoker at home out of an old beer barrel that Mark has saved. It was very pleasant in the sunshine with the windows open. We were right next to the grass verge, and the birds were singing and I could smell the flowers, so it was practically a holiday in itself.
In the end we started moving again, which was a good thing. You have to turn the camper van engine off in traffic queues, because otherwise it gets terribly hot, and makes a burning smell. I was so warm and comfortable that I dozed off, and when I woke up again we were on the other side of Carlisle and almost at Shap Fell.
It was very late by the time we got home, and we almost ran over the Peppers, who were limping out to the pub. We almost gave in to the temptation to go with them, but of course being grown up and sensible prevailed, and so we washed the camper van down and left it clean and bright ready for its next outing.
We might have to do some work to it before we go out again, because we have got a vague suspicion that the back of it is falling off. Actually this is a fib. It is not a vague suspicion at all, we are quite sure that the back is falling off. Some suspicious-looking cracks have appeared, and so we are going to have to do some more repairs.
We are sanguine about this, it is, after all, forty years old, and the corner in question has not yet been excavated. We have ordered twelve tubes of glue. Expect to hear repair stories soon.
We practically had to hack our way through the foliage to get into the conservatory. It was hot and wet and lovely, and everything has grown enormous. Once we had unpacked we sat in there to eat some more smoked prawns before we went to bed, avoiding some of the more predatory-looking plants. One of the squashes tried to eat Lucy the other day. She sat in front of it and when she got up it had curled its tentacles into her hair. You would not want to go to sleep on the sofa.
Have a picture of Scotland this morning.
