The motto of Peebles is the title of my new blog which you will find if you google http://peeblesforpleasure.blogspot.com or follow the link in the left hand column.
It is to be a photo-a-day collection of the town of Peebles. I do hope you will also call in there and perhaps become a registered follower.
Talk again soon.
Monday, 5 January 2009
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Winter walk!
Saturday 3 Jan 2009
The new year has started with some gorgeous weather! Blue sky, wall to wall sunshine, not a hint of a breeze! It's cold though, but I love winter days that begin frosty and turn out like today! Time to blow some cobwebs away!
So here's where I started my walk, continuing under the arch to the right of this, which is rarely flooded enough for water to flow under it.
These ones must have thought I was a fair bet to have some more for them to eat as they started to "follow" me up river for a while - until they realised I was a dead loss, with nothing for them at all!
This is the ice house that would have kept what else but ice for use at the Lodge in its hey day. (Hay day? Hay Lodge? Oh don't groan!) It's a fair distance the servants would have had to carry their ice containers, and it would likely have been in full view of the front of the house! I find that odd, considering servants were kept as much out of sight of the "family" as possible in those days.
The path continues through the gap in the wall, in front of the house (see above) and down onto the riverbank again. This was where Morag joined me to walk up through the park to the Fotheringham footbridge.
I took this photo from the bridge, looking back to the path Mo and I had just taken, and to the church back in town. The first part of the path back was in the shade but further along I got some wonderful reflections........
.......and some interesting sky patterns!
Historians say that the piece of land between Cuddy and Tweed was where the original nomadic people set up their tents and thus was how Peebles got its name - from the word peblys, tents!
The new year has started with some gorgeous weather! Blue sky, wall to wall sunshine, not a hint of a breeze! It's cold though, but I love winter days that begin frosty and turn out like today! Time to blow some cobwebs away!
One of my favourite walks is along the riverside. Quite often, but not often enough, I will head up or down river, across a footbridge, and along the opposite bank past the road bridge, to cross the next footbridge and head back to town. It's not a long walk and on a day like today is a dog-walkers' and a photographer's paradise. I met Morag part way along and we continued together over the river and along the path back to the road bridge before making for the Italian cafe for a warming cup of tea and a bun! Morag hates going walking with me as I am always stopping to take pictures, and she likes to stride out!
Anyway, here are one or two of my photos from today, starting with the Parish Church above. The half timbered building in front is our local Italian restaurant, with the pub locally known as The Trust, beneath. The beigey building with the large gable used to house the police station till recently. Tweed Bridge goes off to the left behind the tree, and what they call Port Brae but is often called Police Brae locally, descends from the road height to the Green. Here the Rotary Club have erected a wishing well for kids to throw coins in, the council bench beside it being a nice place to sit and watch the world go by - in summer!
So here's where I started my walk, continuing under the arch to the right of this, which is rarely flooded enough for water to flow under it.A little further along I found the swan family enjoying some bread thrown to them and several ducks and several more gulls! Mother always used to say that if you saw gulls inland it was because there were storms at sea! (Not sure even now how true, or otherwise, that might be!)
There has always been a swan family along this stretch of the water. A good number of years ago I took a photo from the opposite bank of two adults and three cygnets sailing up the middle of the river. Having taken the photo I put the camera away, but just then the first adult (the male?) suddenly flapped its wings and took to the sky, followed one by one by the female(?) and the three youngsters! What a sight, and me with a camera in my pocket not ready to capture the picture!
These ones must have thought I was a fair bet to have some more for them to eat as they started to "follow" me up river for a while - until they realised I was a dead loss, with nothing for them at all!
Soon I passed Hay Lodge, a beautiful old house that belonged to the Hay family. Its grounds are now the public park and the house itself, has been extended in more recent times, the whole being given over to house medical facilicities attached to the small local hospital and medical surgeries on the other side of the building.
This is the ice house that would have kept what else but ice for use at the Lodge in its hey day. (Hay day? Hay Lodge? Oh don't groan!) It's a fair distance the servants would have had to carry their ice containers, and it would likely have been in full view of the front of the house! I find that odd, considering servants were kept as much out of sight of the "family" as possible in those days.The path continues through the gap in the wall, in front of the house (see above) and down onto the riverbank again. This was where Morag joined me to walk up through the park to the Fotheringham footbridge.
I took this photo from the bridge, looking back to the path Mo and I had just taken, and to the church back in town. The first part of the path back was in the shade but further along I got some wonderful reflections........
.......and some interesting sky patterns! 
Coming back into the town again you pass the fishing platform where we met some more walkers going in the opposite direction, and soon we were able to look across to where the Cuddy Burn joins Tweed, where the swans, ducks and gulls had been fed earlier.
Historians say that the piece of land between Cuddy and Tweed was where the original nomadic people set up their tents and thus was how Peebles got its name - from the word peblys, tents!Just a short way from here to the road bridge where we cut back up to cross it and turn into the High Street again.
I say it often, and I'll say it again - I feel so privileged to be living in such a beautiful area. It may not be so high and "awesome" as the highlands, but I love it!
Talk again soon.
Sunday 4 January 2009
When I started trying to upload photos last night I ran into problems again, so had to leave things as they were and try again today. Of course today was my early shift at work, so it has taken me till now to get the photos in and get ready to post! Today looked like it was going to be a nice day, but the frost wasn't so severe when I went out at just before 7.00a.m, which was probably an indication not to expect what we got yesterday. The sky was just slightly overcast all day, and tonight we got some rain! Hope the temperature doesn't drop suddenly to freeze what wet there is on the ground, or tomorrow will be lethal!
Talk again soon.
Friday, 2 January 2009
Here's to the new year!
Well! I have had the best New Year! I had no thought of going out when I went to work for the evening of 31st December, but before the shop closed - early, for Auld Year's Night - one of my friends called in to buy some wine and invited me to join her and a few others at her place later in the evening.
Bottle of wine in hand - and no b..... camera - I presented myself at Cath's house along with Julia and Ian who I met en route around 9.30. There was talk of a band playing at the Old Courthouse, so after a "couple of bevvies" we trotted off up the road to see what was happening! It was a great night. The band was good, though the poor girl singer had a cold and was struggling a bit. We all danced to blues, boogie, old stuff, new stuff.... till "the bells" at midnight. We counted down the last few seconds of 2008 and cheered the first seconds of 2009, shaking hands, kissing (mwa, mwa), hugging... old friends and new (like that night!), and of course as everyone else would be doing at the same time around the country, if not the English speaking world - and elsewhere perhaps - joined hands to sing Auld Lang Syne, a good old Scottish song of friendship and unity.
Here's a haun' ma trusty fiere, and gie's a haun' o' thine.
We'll tak a richt guid-willie waught for auld lang syne.
Here's my hand my trusted friend, and give me your hand.
We'll have a real goodwill drink to the past (and all it means to us) - to old long ago!
That's my perception of auld lang syne! The tune most people sing these days is not the original tune and song that Burns "collected" and added his words to. There are several versions of the old tune - this beautiful one is to be heard in the most unlikely film, Sex and the City!
So the band played on and we danced on and downed a few bottles of wine, lost Cath (to a man) then all tottered down the road and up the hill to Julia's. Finally, Cath phoned and we all tottered back down the hill again to end the night listening to Spanish gypsy type music and polishing off another bottle of the red stuff amid much laughter!
I reckon I got home about 3.30, and was most put out a few hours later to be wakened by my alarm clock. Time to get up for work again - on New Year's Day too! It's a crime! It was a busy day, being as we were the only shop open for miles around! There was a queue waiting for the morning newspapers before we opened, and it went like a fair for the rest of the day - well, till we closed at 4.00.
On with the partying. David had invited me to a "late lunch" after work so I duly drove off down the road to his place. His sister and her husband and various other friends including John from Ireland, and Wilma, an old school friend of David's, were there also, still waiting for lunch! David is a great cook, but even great cooks have their problems and his was the larger of his two ovens, which went on the blink just as he put the ham in to bake! The smaller one then had to cope with the ham and a chicken! At last we all sat up to the table, pulled crackers, donned our paper hats and read the silly jokes from the crackers. Q. Why didn't the skeleton go to the dance? A. Because he had NoBody to go with! Groan! Q. How does a snail keep its shell shiny? A. It uses snail varnish! Groan again! Can't remember the others! Some of us traded our cracker gifts - come to think of it, I left mine on the dining table! Initially I got a tiny roll of sticky tape on the smallest dispenser you ever saw, but traded it for baubles to tie up long hair into a ponytail, that Alex tried to pass off as Thai Love Beads! Silly man!
After a delicious meal, Karen herded us out into the garden for a firework display, which was quite fun, even though I'm not generally too keen on the explosive concept! We all got sparklers to hold and wave about too, like we did as kids - and guess what? I didn't have my camera again! Then we all sat around the fire and chatted about things sublime to things ridiculous, till gradually folk began to drift off home, or in John's case, to sleep, then eventually after being plied with more Christmas cake, and, in my case, apple juice - I was driving - I taxied Wilma home and continued back up to Peebles! 2.30 a.m.!!!!!
Guess what! The alarm woke me a few hours later. Time to go to work again! I did some different shifts this week, including some mornings - though thankfully not from 7.00a.m. Today was 11.00 till 7.00, yesterday 10.00 till 4.00, but after we closed tonight I bought a Chinese carry-out from Wendy and Tim, took that home to demolish, and crashed out on the sofa in front of the fire and the TV, intending to go to bed early! Huh! It's now well after 3.00a.m and here I am, blogging! I could have waited till tomorrow! It's my day off after all, but no, the night owl is still up! Well, there will be no alarm clock tomorrow morning - but I bet the phone will ring early! It usually does when I want to sleep in!
Anyway, talk again soon.
Bottle of wine in hand - and no b..... camera - I presented myself at Cath's house along with Julia and Ian who I met en route around 9.30. There was talk of a band playing at the Old Courthouse, so after a "couple of bevvies" we trotted off up the road to see what was happening! It was a great night. The band was good, though the poor girl singer had a cold and was struggling a bit. We all danced to blues, boogie, old stuff, new stuff.... till "the bells" at midnight. We counted down the last few seconds of 2008 and cheered the first seconds of 2009, shaking hands, kissing (mwa, mwa), hugging... old friends and new (like that night!), and of course as everyone else would be doing at the same time around the country, if not the English speaking world - and elsewhere perhaps - joined hands to sing Auld Lang Syne, a good old Scottish song of friendship and unity.
Here's a haun' ma trusty fiere, and gie's a haun' o' thine.
We'll tak a richt guid-willie waught for auld lang syne.
Here's my hand my trusted friend, and give me your hand.
We'll have a real goodwill drink to the past (and all it means to us) - to old long ago!
That's my perception of auld lang syne! The tune most people sing these days is not the original tune and song that Burns "collected" and added his words to. There are several versions of the old tune - this beautiful one is to be heard in the most unlikely film, Sex and the City!
So the band played on and we danced on and downed a few bottles of wine, lost Cath (to a man) then all tottered down the road and up the hill to Julia's. Finally, Cath phoned and we all tottered back down the hill again to end the night listening to Spanish gypsy type music and polishing off another bottle of the red stuff amid much laughter!
I reckon I got home about 3.30, and was most put out a few hours later to be wakened by my alarm clock. Time to get up for work again - on New Year's Day too! It's a crime! It was a busy day, being as we were the only shop open for miles around! There was a queue waiting for the morning newspapers before we opened, and it went like a fair for the rest of the day - well, till we closed at 4.00.
On with the partying. David had invited me to a "late lunch" after work so I duly drove off down the road to his place. His sister and her husband and various other friends including John from Ireland, and Wilma, an old school friend of David's, were there also, still waiting for lunch! David is a great cook, but even great cooks have their problems and his was the larger of his two ovens, which went on the blink just as he put the ham in to bake! The smaller one then had to cope with the ham and a chicken! At last we all sat up to the table, pulled crackers, donned our paper hats and read the silly jokes from the crackers. Q. Why didn't the skeleton go to the dance? A. Because he had NoBody to go with! Groan! Q. How does a snail keep its shell shiny? A. It uses snail varnish! Groan again! Can't remember the others! Some of us traded our cracker gifts - come to think of it, I left mine on the dining table! Initially I got a tiny roll of sticky tape on the smallest dispenser you ever saw, but traded it for baubles to tie up long hair into a ponytail, that Alex tried to pass off as Thai Love Beads! Silly man!
After a delicious meal, Karen herded us out into the garden for a firework display, which was quite fun, even though I'm not generally too keen on the explosive concept! We all got sparklers to hold and wave about too, like we did as kids - and guess what? I didn't have my camera again! Then we all sat around the fire and chatted about things sublime to things ridiculous, till gradually folk began to drift off home, or in John's case, to sleep, then eventually after being plied with more Christmas cake, and, in my case, apple juice - I was driving - I taxied Wilma home and continued back up to Peebles! 2.30 a.m.!!!!!
Guess what! The alarm woke me a few hours later. Time to go to work again! I did some different shifts this week, including some mornings - though thankfully not from 7.00a.m. Today was 11.00 till 7.00, yesterday 10.00 till 4.00, but after we closed tonight I bought a Chinese carry-out from Wendy and Tim, took that home to demolish, and crashed out on the sofa in front of the fire and the TV, intending to go to bed early! Huh! It's now well after 3.00a.m and here I am, blogging! I could have waited till tomorrow! It's my day off after all, but no, the night owl is still up! Well, there will be no alarm clock tomorrow morning - but I bet the phone will ring early! It usually does when I want to sleep in!
Anyway, talk again soon.
Thursday, 1 January 2009
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