Kelso and Dryburgh

The Scots were generally much friendlier to us than the English. Our host in Kelso, a little south of Edinburgh in the southeast of Scotland, tried his best to divert Rowan's attention while Winnie and I had a moderately quiet breakfast together. Kelso was also a lovely hub for visits to Dryburgh abbey, whose ruins are shown above, and Scott's View. Dryburgh Abbey was founded in the early 12th century and was destroyed a couple of times before the English finally let it die a peaceful death in the 16th century. In addition to it being the final resting place of poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott, the greatest living Scottish writer after Robert Burns, it is also home to one of the oldest yew trees in Britain (supposedly, the tree was planted in the 12th century). Sorry, I've got a thing for trees.

A great photo of Rowan standing in one of the remaining roofed rooms of the old abbey. Music was playing from a CD player in the room, and Rowan was listening intently. You can also see how tall he's getting.

This is Scott's View, the place where Sir Walter Scott would stop daily on his walks with his dog. As the story goes, at Scott's funeral, his dog left the caravan at this very spot and looked out on the scene, as Scott had done, halting the procession for a few minutes. Rowan was in the car eating crackers.

From here we headed to the northern most point on our trip--Edinburgh.