08 July 2012

First the pictures, from Lothian and Fife Scotland:

The Forth Road Bridge on a rainy day.

Swans

The Forth Rail Bridge in the mist.

The Hawes Inn, South Queensferry, Scotland

Dunfermline Abbey Church

Dunfermline Palace ruins

Memorial brass above the tomb of King Robert the Bruce

Cinderella lost her shoe

Saturday, we headed off to Scotland, to have lunch at the Hawes Inn and visit Dunfermline Abbey.  We were on the road by 8 am, with an ETA in South Queensferry of 'before noon'.  The weather has been dreadful--and Saturday was no exception.  We were about 20 minutes out when we came to a complete stop about a mile from the Straiton Junction on the Edinburgh by-pass and the road was closed--with no diversion!  And very few people had any idea where they were!  I had a vague idea of where we needed to be, so we headed that way.  3 1/2 hours later, we got to the Hawes Inn, which fortunately is that rare beast of a British pub these days and they were serving food all day.  So we had lunch (a scallop starter and salmon for lunch for me) and took a few pictures.

Then we headed off to Dunfermline and the abbey, arriving seconds after the last admission at 5 pm.  So I played the pitiful card--and because we're both members (I have Historic Scotland and Jeff has English Heritage) so she didn't have to collect any money--and she let us in.  There's a lot to see there and well worth another trip.  The church had closed early because they'd had 3 weddings on Saturday, but they were still cleaning and (pitiful card again) they let us walk thru so we got to see the memorial brass--and get pictures.

The trip home was slightly less eventful but it was still midnight when we got back.  We stopped at the Errington Arms (a pub just outside of Corbridge) and I had salmon (with beetroot instead of potatoes) for dinner.  I love beets--and these were really good.

I'm still on my plateau but I'm feeling pretty good about the diet in spite of it.  We drove down to Mildenhall and Lakenheath today and got some stuff our commissary doesn't stock.  It's still raining but we did have a few sunny patches--and no closed roads.