A new baby, lockdown, a journey. The drive, from the borderlands of Northumberland to the Pentland hills. Beside me the obligatory hand gel and face masks, meagre defence against this rampant virus. Covid. The radio chatters, talking of the R number rising, scary statistics of deaths and rates of infections. The world will close down […]

It’s been 10 years since my favourite immersive Tweed experience. Every year I explore a new Scottish waterway with a fellow adventurer and for 2016 it was the year of the Tweed. Paddling from Innerleithen to Norham over three days was unforgettable. Full of wildlife, and stunning historic buildings and bridges, there was a steady […]

After visiting my daughter and her family between Christmas and New Year I was travelling home through the Tweed valley between Coldstream and Kelso. Late afternoon and a clear sky. Amid the seasonal hurly burly this view was, in every sense, a breath of fresh air.

At the meeting of the waters, you’ll still hear folks reminiscing about the time they used to picnic by the river before ‘the new bridge’ was built. Constructed in 1974 but still thought of as new and just as much maligned as the day it arrived. Along from here is Abbotsford House, historically important and […]

Kelso Abbey was founded in the 12th century by Tironensian monks during the reign of Alexander I, and once stood as one of Scotland’s most powerful monastic houses. Overlooking the meeting of the Tweed and Teviot rivers, it occupied a strategic site near Roxburgh, the intended southern stronghold of the emerging Scottish kingdom. This abbey […]

Founded in 1150 when Hugh de Morville invited Premonstratensian canons from Alnwick to settle here, their arrival marked the beginning of centuries of devotion and resilience. The abbey endured fire and destruction during the border wars, burned by English troops in 1322 and again by Richard II in 1385, yet it rose from the ashes […]