percival

... she went to Dumfries and Galloway with her husband! We will be married for two years tomorrow (anniversary of church ceremony), so we decided to celebrate by having a weekend away. Since GNER wanted 115 pounds return to carry both of us to York, we decided to hand sixty quid over to Thrifty for the two-day lease of a trustworthy Ford Ka and went off in search of Wigtown, Scotland's book town.

Wigtown is a small town in the south-west corner of Scotland, in a part called the Machars where the first Christian church in Scotland was founded. The council decided to reinvent the local economy by lurnig lots of bookshops to the place. Well, it sort of worked - sort of because
a) most of the book shops are generic second hand, even though some are specialised
b) the "book town" isn't really advertised as such

Well, I found a couple of things by browsing, but overall, I wasn't too impressed. Mainly because my specialties (affordable theology, mind-body-spirit, history books) were scarcely met, but also because some bookstores sold both second-hand and new. The "new books" sometimes looked decidedly worn, though ... I was on the verge of acquiring a reasonable collection of C.S. Lewis religious works in paperback, but the fact that the price was only marked down one pound from the original held me back - normally, I look for more substantive discounts. I did get Barbara Tuchman's brilliant analysis of 14th century Europe, A Distant Mirror, for 4 quid, though - and a book by Shirley Conran, Down with Superwoman, full of time-saving household tips. And - erm - quite a few others.

On the way home, hubby and me went via Gretna Green. You think it's romantic? You want to go there? FORGET IT. NOW. The Gretna of today is a 1910's planned town, with a one-street town centre and a slightly seedy factory outlet village where we had a coffee in Thornton's the chocolatier's cafe. Since the cafe was quite understaffed, we had to queue for fifteen minutes to get our order. The Old Blacksmith's visitor centre slightly out of town, where you can get married, is an imposing white house, with adjacent sixties concrete abomination.

Much nicer were the Scottish Borders, which we crossed on a perilous barely-two-track road. We passed Samye Ling, the Tibetan monastery, but out of consideration for my heroically driving husband, I did not get out and wander around. In the end, it took us two and a half hours to get from Gretna to Edinburgh via Samye Ling, Peebles, and Penicuik - just enough time to listen to the new British Top 40. I liked maybe ten songs. Sheesh.