Friday, August 04, 2006

Our first real holiday. (Part 6 Further afield)

Even though we were on holiday, my natural curiosity for delving into things didn’t wane. We discovered several old places of interest and Iris was fascinated by many of these. She was quickly amassing a collection of souvenirs to take home for friends and it was a common cry when passing a gift shop for her to say “Hang on; I must get this for so-and-so!”
Iris was keen to visit Edinburgh and one day we set off northwards and arrived there shortly before lunchtime. After parking the car we walked around the centre and up Prince’s Street in time to hear the mid-day gun sound from Edinburgh Castle. We found a place to eat and while we were there, Iris saw a photograph of the Forth Road Bridge; she just had to see it! We drove across it and toured around for the rest of the afternoon and went up as far as Loch Leven. Iris wanted to see a Scottish loch! Loch Leven isn’t the most picturesque of lochs but it was a loch nevertheless. We weren’t much more than a stone’s throw from some close relatives of mine who lived in Glenrothes. I knew they would be very pleased to see me but to explain what I was doing with a strange woman hundreds of miles away from home deterred me from a visit!!!
We went back to Berwick, cutting through the Lammermuir Hills and found a delightful pub at a little village called Chirnside. For its size and for such an out-of-the-way place, the pub had a very impressive menu. It was getting late so we decided to have dinner there. The steaks were melt-in-the-mouth delicious!
We arrived back at the caravan around 9.30 pm and immediately went out again to the Ponderosa pub! That first holiday will always remain in my memory even though we went back there time and time again.
The days passed so very quickly and it was soon time to return home. We arrived back late Saturday night, tired and ready for bed. When I left Iris on Sunday morning, she couldn’t help crying a little. It tore at my guts to see her like that; however, we were back together a couple of days later. We managed several weekends before the summer weather was over and we were getting into a permanent partner relationship. God, how I loved that girl!

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