April update

It's been a long time since my last post, so here goes now with some photos from the last month or so. Jo and I made our long-planned trip to Peebles - this time for more pleasant reasons than our emergency trip following Barry's collapse. We had been booked in to the Tontine Hotel, where Helen and Barry had stayed on that fateful weekend. It's a nice hotel in a great location, right in the centre of Peebles High St, with the River Tweed just behind. Here's a night photo of the hotel:

We had driven to Peebles in lashing rain from Glasgow onwards - we had taken a slight detour to go and see Barry in hospital in Clydebank after his triple bypass. There was some pretty bad flooding in the Borders but we got there safely and had a very nice meal in the hotel restaurant that evening.

Fortunately, it was dry when we awoke on Tuesday morning so our plans for a short walk before lunch could go ahead. We made the short trip out to Eddlestone, parked the car and walked in to the grounds of Barony Hall Hotel:

There are a number of woodland walks around there and we wandered along some of the trails and then back to the hotel to have a look at the Polish map of Scotland. It's a large relief map created by a former Polish prisoner of war as a thank you to his Scottish hosts:

After a walk round the grounds there we headed back down the long driveway to the village for lunch in the Horseshoe Inn, a lovely gastropub. Later, back in Peebles, we took a river walk, crossing the bridges over the Tweed. Jo was taking her own photos by now:

Then it was time for our afternoon Prosecco cream tea in the hotel. In the evening, we paid a quick visit to a former CAMRA Pub of the Year, the Bridge Inn, then it was back over to the Crown Hotel for something to eat.

It was raining again on Wednesday morning, but we took a stroll along the High St. before we left Peebles, going past the County offices and a local mural:

We had arranged to have lunch with Ross in Edinburgh on our way home, but we took a slight detour and went to have a quick look outside Rosslyn Chapel, famously featured in the Da Vinci Code film:

For lunch with Ross, we drove to the Gyle, where we could find somewhere to eat with easy parking.The it was home again.

Barry's been making good progress on the longish return to full fitness.

Gary and Luca came over for Jo's birthday and we all went to Luca's favourite restaurant, the Derbar:

Lucy sent Jo a warm top to snuggle in to - it'll be very useful when we can no longer afford to heat the house:

Banchory's town centre postbox is again bedecked with a knitted top - this time the theme is Easter: