A New Adventure!

Ruby at Silver Craigs Caravan Park
overlooking Kirkcudbright

It has been a few years since I was involved with my blog "Pat's Kitchen".  I am not sure why I got so sidetracked, but I did.  Even though I missed doing the blog, I just could not get the energy up to continue it.  Why am I starting now? Well, I missed my blog and the personal record it helps me keep of all our adventures.  Plus, I am now retired AND we just got a camper van and we will be doing so much more that needs to be shared!  Please forgive me if I seem a bit rusty, I will get back into the swing of things as I get used to blogging again!

We collected our camper van, whose name is Ruby, on 1 August and immediately hit the road to see how it felt to be out and about in our own camper.  (We had hired a camper van to see the North Coast 500 a few weeks earlier and were warned that it would not be long before we got our own! The NC 500 was amazing and will be shared here, eventually!)

The pressure was to decide on the perfect place to experience this sort of camping for the first time, ok, not the first time, but it really is for us.  We chose Kirkcudbright!  Both of us had been here once or twice, but not together and it is just a gorgeous little artist town and felt like the right decision.

Alan and I travelled as we always do - with no definite plans on where we will stop!  It usually works out well for us and it did this time too.  We found a campsite, http://www.silvercraigscaravanpark.co.uk,  that is only two minutes' walk from Kirkcudbright and got a fabulous pitch overlooking the town.  It was perfect and we will return one day!

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and walked all around the town.  Alan had been previously and had discovered an amazing garden that was like living art.

I fell in love with this and kept thinking how my good  friend from high school, who is an artist, would love to see it.

About 7 years ago, I had come here on a trip with Mom as part of the Burns Club outings.  We had stopped at E A Hornel's house but Mom was not able to go in.  I saw the house but really remembered the amazing garden.  Since this is a National Trust property, Alan and I were able to visit it.  We did have our 10 month old Boxer puppy with us so we had to be a bit creative in how we visited.  She was only permitted in the garden but had to walk through the house to get to the garden door.

Then they waited for me in a darling summer house while I retraced my footsteps from my earlier visit.  Alan then went on his own while she and I waited for him.  The garden is too big to take a decent photo of it.  All I can say is it is so long and varied that you cannot see the house from the end of the garden.  Always worth a visit and really should have about an hour to just sit and enjoy being there.

We also discovered MacLellan's castle - an Historic Scotland property.  Alan and I belong to both National Trust and Historic Scotland because you do recoup your membership fee so quickly by simply visiting just a few properties.  This castle just grabbed my imagination since it was so unexpected.  The entrance leads into very grand looking stairs but the kitchen and ground floors have loads of scaffolding.  It may interfere with the beauty of the building, but I was happy to see the care and attention this building is getting.  Upstairs is the grand hall and a little room off of it called the Laird's Lug (the lord's ear).  The room has a tiny window in it which actually opens at the top of the fireplace in the grand hall.  This way he could eavesdrop on conversations!

The Laird's room is off the grand hall and has an "ensuite"!  This seemed a bit modern to me, but when I went to the other side of the grand hall and saw the one bedroom on this floor and the upper bedrooms which are visible since there are no floors!  Each one has an ensuite!  I thought this was amazing.

Most of the time in Kirkcudbright, we just walked along, and enjoyed the scenery.  The Artist's Studio Trail was beginning the day we left and you could feel the buzz of so many artists getting ready for this.

These blue numbers related to the Studio Trail

In addition, there is a Scottish Night at the Harbour Square every Thursday beginning at the end of July and going through August.  The crowd there would make you think this was a once in a season event, so that made it even more impressive since it is actually weekly.

Tug of war between visiting men and local children
(the men didn't know who their competition was until they had already volunteered!)

Festival Princesses handing out certificates to the losing team! 

Unfortunately for me, I had a commitment to be someplace else for the weekend and we could not stay if we wanted to, which we certainly did.  But I will really try to be in Kirkcudbright next year for this weekend.

                             Looks like our puppy might adjust quite well to this style of travel.

•       Thomas Merton. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”