Gates

 All three of us slept soundly in our giant room, although the clicking fridge annoyed Ian a bit. Another benefit of being deaf. No clicking of tiny paws though as everywhere is carpeted. Because of the slope I got up to see to Misty. Who knows when another slope will come along. I’m glad I did as the sunrise was stunning.

Sunrise over the Battlesteads Slope

We cleared the room of edible material. Loads of nice teas, coffees, hot chocolate. All will be needed for our motor home journey. I even took the sugar as you never know. Plus some very nice fruit that was left for us but we didn’t eat. All Misty’s dog treats were gone, she doesn't mess about. 

Misty was coming along for breakfast again so we popped over to find an old dog there. Both were immaculately behaved again. Apparently the old dog was always running up and down stairs and even slept on their bed. Breakfast was really good, full English of course.

We were heading for Falkirk today and decided to go via Portabello Beach in Edinburgh. We programmed the sat nav and off we went. Across the weak bridge (just fit) and up into the hills beyond. As we climbed I began to get a little prickling feeling on the back of my neck. The road seemed familiar. We rose some more and the feeling intensified. I knew this way. We had been this way once before. This was the way to………..

GATES!

You have to open and close the ‘gates’ on to some farmers land. The person doing the opening and closing (me) is fearful of being confronted by said farmer with a shotgun, and that person is counting the seconds until the 2.5miles between the ‘gates’ is done. Not only that, we had to contend with sheep on the road, disdainful cows, and a cyclist. The views were amazing though.

At last we came out the other end of ‘gates’. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Now we were on the road to the borders and Edinburgh. And what a lovely road it is. Even the rain didn’t dampen our spirits. At the border we stopped for photos. A couple of bikers asked us to take theirs, and they reciprocated. Blooming cold though!

 Next we stopped at Leaderfoot on the river Tweed. We gave Misty a short rain drenched walk and Ian met a man from Turkey who had just dropped his friend off at Herriot Watt to start a lecturing job. He was on his way back to Birmingham where he was a PhD civil engineering student. 

As we pulled into Portobello Beach the rain died away and we had a lovely walk along the prom followed by lunch at crumbs.

Back to the car then, and off to Falkirk, via Leith docks. Lots of building work going on there. The next hotel, the Grangemanor at Grangemouth is not as nice as Battlesteads but still has a giant bed. 

When I booked in, Dave, the guy on reception with the bad dandruff, told me that Misty could go to breakfast as we could sit in the bar, but there was a party in there tonight so she couldn’t go to tea, especially if she is ‘a nervous dog!’. Ha! Nevertheless it was with heavy heart that we made our way across the car park to ‘cooks’ after locking her in the unfamiliar room. The meal was quite nice actually, even though the menu for the BB and EM peasants was very limited. Ian liked the local beer too. Re crossing the car park afterwards we could see that the party seemed to involve only young girls in very short skirts, and a guy in a kilt. Dave was right after all.

We re-entered the The Shining corridor (why do a certain type of hotel always model their corridors on that film?) with trepidation, expecting to hear barking or whimpers of abandonment. But Misty appeared to have coped better than us. As a treat we took her on a late night walk to see the Kelpies. We couldn’t get too close as I was unwilling to walk too far down a dark canal side in an unfamiliar Scottish town, but we got close enough to see them change colour several times. 

Tomorrow we’ll go a bit closer in daylight