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!

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.