A Quick Change of Weather

 

It started off well at least! Last weekend we finally gave camping a go and, to keep it safe, popped over to North Berwick to trial run things. There was a few concerns (not toilets, I don't mind a 3am flit if necessary to a properly cleaned shower block), mainly that I'd get cold (yay Raynaud's) and that Maisie (yes, our favourite gremlin) would be chaos.

Well, the first part was sorted with a onesie, a cosy sleeping bag and a fan heater for the one evening I felt damp and chilly. The second part...

Well, don't let that cheeky smile fool you. I don't appreciate being woken up by being literally walked on at 12.30am. She was good as gold the rest of the time, but I did severely miss not having a door to close between us. So that's it, glamping and she's more than welcome, but camping and she's staying with my brother!

Following our quick trip (we spent our full day on the beach and looking about tat ships) it was our friends birthday. The plan was Dungeons and Dragons and it was a great laugh.

And then it all went wrong. Monday I was tired. Therefore, when all my electronics started to play up bar my phone, I was perplexed. It took me way longer than it should to realise the broadband was broken.

And boy was it broken. Down Monday night. All day Tuesday (thankfully an office day) then Wednesday (a site visit, so I managed using my work phone as a hotspot). We quickly realised it was a utility strike, someone had damaged the cable, but something else was bothering me, mostly the lack of lights on the hub...

Well, along came our special 4G dongle and...in principle it's great, but I live in a 50s build made of sandstone. My network signal isn't great at the best of times.

Today was a sufferance. After initially being impressed with the dongle, I fell to despair as everything kept failing and falling over. I got a notification that the fault was fixed and looked longingly at the hub and lack of lights. An engineer was booked for Monday as, now that fault was resolved, we could log our deadly departed hub.

The weather perfectly matched my mood.

Then hubby got in and admired the new router that had arrived. I hadn't bothered to set it up on account of the dead hub when he had the bright idea to check if it was the same plug and, Y'all, I have never been so happy to see those little lights. We still have the engineer coming Monday (I'll swap the plugs over) but it means tomorrow I can actually get on with my job.

And I can go back to doom scrolling, but the less said the better!

Prepare to give Fire!

Its that time of year when all the activities and events are on - and with the tremendously good weather, I've found myself wanting to do all of them! Today, my friend, Missy and I did the Prepare to give Fire! event at Dirleton Castle. Ironically, it wasn't that long ago I last visited this castle, but it seemed worth the trip as the other Historic Scotland events this weekend were at non-doggy castles.

Right from the start it was a scorching day and, sunscreen liberally applied, we arrived early and got a chance to chat with the reinactors - they're great people, and are always friendly. Missy stole cuddles off of a chap in a very dandy hat and enjoyed getting fussed over. They all checked if Missy would be alright with the noise and, after explaining that the only thing that upset her last year at the Seige on the Forth was the petard, they all agreed that it was the noisiest and reassured me that whilst it was on display, there wasn't any intention of setting it off.

There was the canon demonstration at midday, so we watched that before looking about the castle. With us both being into out photography, I'm ashamed to say that we took more photos of the flowers than the castle itself! It was a nice break getting into the cool castle and then it was back into the sun to meet the barber surgeon.

Lets put it this way, with or without medical help, chances were you weren't going to make it - getting help was probably a more painful way to go!

We found a nice cool spot under some trees and chilled out together until two when it was the musket demonstration. Whilst Missy was absolutely fine temperature wise, she had clearly had enough by that point. I'm not going to complain that its too hot (no one wants to be that person), but what it has been is simply too long and she's been getting tired easily. My friend suggested the beach and, with Yellowcraigs only a mile away, it seemed like a great idea.

We may make a beach dog out of her yet! Getting into some cool water is exactly what she needed and we all had fun splashing about in the shallows. The waves are still too daunting for her, but she certainly went deeper this time before playing with the other dogs about the beach.

A perfect end to the day!

Tantallon Castle and Dirleton Castle and Gardens

It's been a weekend for castles!

Missy loves looking out of windows

The hubby decided he wanted to see a real 'proper' castle and, thanks to our Historic Scotland passes, I found Tantallon. It had a (dry) moat, check, had seen actual battles, check, held a defensive position, check, and wasn't originally built as a palace, check. And as a bonus, there was another castle and gardens (Dirleton) just around the corner to justify the hour drive to get out to North Berwick.

Tantallon Castle

Tantallon is an imposing castle. It grips onto the edge of the cliff like a broken gargoyle, its ruined state mostly due to Cromwells efforts to invade Scotland and the fact that a Royalist band had set up in Tantallon and were disrupting his communication lines. It was mostly held by the notorious Douglas' and its ownership history makes interesting reading. It was refreshingly free of references to Mary Queen of Scots, which makes a nice change!

Bass Rock visible to the left

This was a great site for Missy. There was a quarter mile walk from the car park where we let her off the lead, and the grounds itself is obviously home to fleets of bunnies and voles - her nose didn't stop twitching for the whole visit. There was a multitude of narrow winging stairs, and the other dog owners complimented Missy's mastery of them - I was bemused to meet a German Shepherd that apparently couldn't manage them at all, I had always assumed the smaller breeds would have struggled more!

The winding stairs are worth it. The views from atop the castle are stunning. Bass Rock (home to millions of gannets) can be easily seen out at sea and Berwick Law dominates the inland landscape. I could have spent longer getting pictures, but after stopping for lunch, we decided to move onto Dirleton before the weather turned.

Direlton Castle and Grounds is exactly the kind of castle the hubby had been meaning when he said we hadn't done a proper castle. Built in peaceful times in the 1200s, it was to a show of wealth. Saying that, it has seen its fair share of battle, surviving two wars of independence before Cromwell came along and finished the job, leaving it a ruin. Like most castles, it has been added to over time and is a rabbit warren or old and new parts (or slightly less old, really).

The huge dovecot

 It does have a drawbridge though and perhaps one of the most beautiful dovecots I've ever seen that would have housed 2000 birds in its day. The grounds are beautifully kept as well and Missy was incredibly perplexed at the bowling match we saw taking place. I tried explaining to her that the balls were not bunnies, but I don't think she quite believed me and just stood completely on point and alert.

 

Whilst the stairs are not quite as tight or winding as Tantallon, they are quite uneven and had become rather slippery in the light drizzle. As a result, we decided to let Missy off the lead on the stairs, one of us going ahead to catch her at the other end and clip her back on. The steps leading to the pit (or dungeon) were particularly uneven and the only one she struggled on, but I suspect that was intended in the original design of them!

 

All in all a great day. We called it quits at just the right time as the drive home was in torrential rain and now we're all enjoying some nice hot tea whilst Missy is snoring away on the sofa beside me.

It has made me want to do some more of North Berwick, I did a boat ride out to Bass Rock when I was a kid and fancy doing it again, and Yellowcraigs, the local beach, is perhaps one of the nicest in Edinburgh. If the summer decides to get its act in gear and be nice for more than a morning, we might manage another day trip!

Until next time!