Sunday 5 May to Thursday 9 May

We ended up spending six nights in Peebles (overnighting in 4 locations). Sunday was overcast, but dry (save for a few flakes of snow) with decent air clarity, so a good day (if we overlook the -7 windchill) for walking the horseshoe including Dun Rig. That was my final Marilyn of this portion of the trip; there was one more I had pencilled in, but having thrown myself to the ground with some force at the end of Sunday's outing, I opted to defer that one to some unknown future date.

I can't think we did much of anything on Monday. I recall making some chocolate snack bar thingies - a recipe that's well suited to a motor home kitchen - but most of them have curiously disappeared over the last three days. I must have done a fair bit of knitting on my latest jumper. I'm loving the cables on this pattern, but as every row requires concentration, without any mindless rows of just plain knitting, I am regretting making it out of cheap, poor quality yarn that I know will look tatty very quickly. I wonder if I'll still like the pattern when I'm working of the second iteration, once I've bought some nice wool?

 Tuesday saw us relocate ourselves to a campsite in between Musselburgh and Prestonpans, on the coast to the south of Edinburgh. It was our third choice of location, with the first two (cheap certified campsites) being booked up, but actually this one was the most conveniently located and had the benefit of a laundry, which I put to good use in the afternoon.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I took myself off for a short jogette in the morning, in the hope that when I next run, in just over two weeks' time, my legs won't protest too much. It didn't rain heavily on me, but the rest of the day was miserable and wet - a good day for staying in and re-packing our backpacks, hunting down all the kit that has migrated into various nooks and crannies over the last three weeks.

Today marked the end of the first leg of the Bertie portion of the trip. He was fully drained down* at the campsite service point then taken to a secure caravan storage site where he suddenly found himself abandoned in unfamiliar surroundings, although with dozens of neighbours and another Hymer right next to him, he'll hopefully not miss us too much whilst we walk across Scotland.

We're now well into a full day of public transport that should see us arrive in Dornie (west coast of Scotland) at 1930. All being well, in a couple of weeks we'll arrive in Montrose (on the east coast). I'll be blogging as we go on our walking blog at: http://gayleybird.blogspot.com.

^{(*We last put water in Bertie's tank on Easter Monday, 22 April, filling it to just over 90 litres. Yesterday we dropped below 30 litres remaining and today we drained away the excess. Draining is something we usually do on the driveway at home so we don't have to stand around waiting for the four drain points (grey water, water heater, pipes, clean water tank) to stop flowing. The 10-litre hot tank was the slowest to drain.)}

Sunday 28 April to Saturday 4 May

To repeat what I said in my last post:

We're currently in Scotland and I don't usually blog UK trips here, because they are invariably walking-themed, and thus I blog them on our walking blog - which is where all of the photos are residing.

This is therefore just a brief overview of the last week:

Sunday 28th
Location: Hermitage Castle and Hawick
Weather: sunny intervals

Our tactic of rescheduling our next walk (a two-Marilyn circuit) for Sunday paid dividends: dry weather with some sunshine.

Both tops were successfully visited and we were back at Bertie at 2pm. Managed to squeeze in a visit to the Hermitage Castle before we left for Hawick - it didn't take long, making us grateful that Mick qualified for the concession rate. Compared with other tourist attractions we've visited over the years, this one didn't warrant the entrance fee.

Hawick has done something unusual for the UK: allocated a small area of a 400-space car park for motorhomes, who are allowed to stay for 24 hours (free of charge). There are public toilets (30p and not open 24 hours) and a tap there too.

Monday 29 April
Location: Hawick
Weather: Foggy start, but plenty of sunshine once it burnt through.

I woke earlier than the alarm to a tree dripping on Bertie's roof. As it wasn't raining that indicated fog. I had no inclination to go up a hill without visibility, and Mick expressed a preference to stay in Hawick a while for a little look around (our only other visit to the town was when we passed through on foot on our way from Kent to Cape Wrath in 2010).

At noon we returned to Bertie with our haul from a round of the charity shops, in the form of books and DVDs, then almost immediately went out again when Google told me that there was a Wetherspoons in town. Armed with electronic gadgets, we ate cheap and highly calorific food whilst downloading lots of stuff.

By mid-afternoon we had relocated ourselves to the Ettrick area, Bertie was settled into a pull-in below my next hill and I'd set up to visit its summit, whilst Mick pleaded 'ate too much lunch!' and dedicated time to reading instead.

Tuesday 30 April
Location: Ettrick
Weather: Overcast but dry

My morning was filled with a bike ride out to two hills to the NW, whilst Mick visited the hill I'd bagged yesterday afternoon. That would have been enough exercise for the day, but with one eye on the weather and another on my tentative plans for the next few days, once we'd relocated Bertie to the other side of the next hill on my agenda, I thought that a late-afternoon outing was a good idea. Mick was convinced to join me too, on the basis that it would be good exercise even if this wasn't a hill that satisfies his notion of one with merit.

Wednesday 1 May
Location: Ettrick and Peebles
Weather: Showery

My plan for Wednesday was swiftly modified when I woke to rain. Suddenly the thought of cycling 16 miles and walking up Ettrick Pen had lost its appeal. Instead I reverted to the original plan for a smaller hill more local to where Bertie was parked. Donning full waterproofs worked too: the rain paused for the whole time I was out.

I was ready for a hot drink and a snack when I got back, but as Peebles wasn't too far distant and as we were going to a campsite there, it seemed sensible to defer both until arrival.

In 2008 and 2010 (whilst walking from Land's End to John o'Groats and from Kent to Cape Wrath respectively) we stayed at Crossburn campsite in Peebles and on one of those occasions I commented that it was one of the best value campsites of the trip. Things have changed in the last decade (or maybe they're just cheap for backpacking tents?) and we declined their offer to rent us a patch of ground for the night for £28. Driving again past the plethora of blue flashing lights (fire and police) outside of a petrol station where a Dutch artic driver had failed to heed the limited height of the canopy before attempting to drive under it, we backtracked to Rosetta Caravan Park. It's a dated place, but came in at a more acceptable £20, so that's where we stayed.

Thursday 2 May
Location: Peebles
Weather: Dry until mid-afternoon then just a couple of light showers.

Having realised that one of the nearby hills on my hit-list was an easy bike ride away, our stay at Rosetta Caravan Park was extended to two nights. I'd cycled there, walked up it and cycled back within an hour and a half and over lunch realised that another of my hills was also easily reachable from the campsite, this time on foot. Mick came along and en-route, for the second time in a week, I had one of those 'We've been here before!' realisations (subesequent searching of the archives of our walking blog tells us we actually walked by the foot of this hill in both 2008 and 2010).

Friday 3 May
Location: near Peebles
Weather: a few squalls passed through in the afternoon and the windchill was biting.

Saturday's weather forecast looked better than Friday's so this was declared a rest day. The obvious thing to do would have been to stay on the campsite again, but it's a Bank Holiday weekend, thus (even though they clearly were going to be a long way from full) the price was going up to beyond what we were prepared to pay. So, we moved on (incidentally, the facilities at Rosetta may be dated and not entirely clean, but the showers were fantastic!).

By 'moved on' I mean we parked Bertie in a car park in town, took a walk around and went to Wetherspoons for a substantial second breakfast and more wifi downloading (audiobooks, podcasts, TV programmes). The afternoon saw us visit the John Buchan museum and an art exhibition in the library building - the latter more diverting than the former.

The end of the day took us to an out-of-the-way viewpoint car park, where we encountered just one dog walker and one 'yoof'. He came and went, with various numbers of passengers, four times between late afternoon and 11pm and their activities seemed to be limited to vaping, phone-staring and giving us a good blast on the horn as they left.

Saturday 4 May
Location: Peebles
Weather: Gloriously sunny start, but bitingly cold, with clouds gathering and a few showers this afternoon.

The walk that we deferred until today got deferred again when I found out last night that there's a parkrun in Peebles. Thankfully, once I'd checked the location on the parkrun website, I took a peek at their Facebook page. If I hadn't done that I would have completely forgotten that Scottish parkruns start at 9.30, not 9am.

I ran the 3-and-a-bit lap course around some pleasant parkland being manned by very friendly and encouraging marshals, whilst Mick spectated. Then (dare I admit?) for the third time this week, we went to Wetherspoons. Three cups of coffee/tea apiece, two pints of lime and soda and two very substantial meals for
£13. It may not be award-winning food, but you can't fault it for being cheap and full of calories! Didn't take much advantage of the wifi today - there's only so much stuff I can find to download in a week! After sitting in the warm for more hours than was strictly reasonable, we ventured back to Bertie. Gosh, it's biting out there! Is it really early May?