Kelso+ Jedburgh July 19+20

"At the beginning the walker has a choice.  She can take the standard route or she can take the alternative high route, which is longer, harder, and poorly marked, but the views are excellent." Not needing longer—almost 19 miles was enough—harder, or getting lost, I opted for standard. All parts of the walk that were not on asphalt (many miles were, though,) were lovely: riparian and sylvan paths, fields, sweet little hamlets and the occasional house.  This is the civilised, circular Borders Abbey Way as opposed to the wild, brutal Southern Upland Way, if you see what I mean:

There were sheep still reposing (if repose is a verb):




And cows (bullocks?) already up for the day:




There is the bridge not crossed (or maybe it was)!



Came to Dryburgh Abbey, which offers "a retreat from everyday life and an escape into the serenity of this beautiful riverside monastery." I, however, could not retreat and enjoy the serenity it promised, for I arrived before the hour when tour busses pull up and such serenity is offered.

By and by I came to a plaque that claimed Newstead to be the oldest town in Scotland.  Hmmm, but Traquair is the oldest house and it is not in Newstead. How can this be? Let us assume that both statements are correct.  If so, then Traquair is not a house but a HOUSE.  A HOUSE does not need a town.  In fact, it scoffs at towns. Therefore the houses is Newstead would would be houses, like this, maybe:



while Traquair remains a HOUSE, which is now open to the public and makes money selling tchatchkes.  If both statement are not correct, then we area dealing with a blatant case of fake news.

Kelso has the remains of an Abbey (below) and cobblestone streets (not photographed);



Must be pretty tired because I am really thinking about that rest day!  Only annoying thing about it is that it is in Melrose where I stayed last night, where B and B is not great, to put it mildly, AND lady who runs it is NNL (not nice lady).  She is ML (mean lady).

But on one goes next morning at 6:00 a.m. to Jedburgh, a town that really does boast the ruins of a grand abbey only it was raining when I got there so did not take camera.  Too tired to schlep up a big hill in the rain to see old castle and gaol or other sites for that matter, so headed to CoOp where I had to make choice of the day:  chicken or salmon. Bought some walnuts. Bag informs that their place of origin is either Moldavia or the U.S., which is hardly informative at all.  At the CoOp, if you want to buy an apple, you have to buy six.

A good part of the walk today was along the River Taviot.  I do not think that William Mcgonagoll, Scottish poet who memorialised the Silvery Tay, wrote about the Taviot:

There were swan families out for a swim, and duck mothers with ducklings, and ducks without ducklings, and other water fowl.  In places the river was lively, the water making a wonderful sound:

The path was overgrown in some places, but this was nothing like looking for BPP, because you are following a river not out on a godforsaken featureless moor:

Lost hat today.  That would not be so bad (Have HAT in reserve) except that lost hat has "secret compartment" wherein I had put some ££, so lost that, too.  Directions to B and B were just awful as the approach to town is a warren of underpasses and bridges, and streets have names like Abbey Court and Abbey View and Abbey Lane and Abbey's End.  (It kind of makes you want to hit somebody!) Even Google Maps wasn't helping because it does not do underpasses or walking route through park.  Had it not been raining and such a nerve wracking search, I might have gone back to look for hat+££.  Hope lucky person who finds hat also finds the secret compartment!  Wouldn't s/he be ever so happy!