Bridges and Punctuation.

My Peebles sojourn has drawn rapidly to a close.

Last night Gary sallied forth from his country house headquarters to join me for a walk. We ambled over the Tweed Bridge and down into Hay Lodge Park. Peebles, being a town that is built around a river, has a pleasing number of bridges punctuating the landscape. A bit like New York, really, with a rather more sedate pace of life. And the bridges are, in general, very old and quite lovely. Although it’s probably easier to find a postcard for sale in New York.

Earlier in the day a friend sent me a picture from Pitlochry, of a rotating postcard stand, crammed with quality-looking Colin-Baxter-esque postcards. So that’s where all the postcards are these days. I was a little envious.

Gary and I wandered along the river bank, climbing and descending along uneven dusty paths broken up by gnarled tree roots and ancient sandstone rocks, the Tweed burbling along happily below. I was minded of my recent reading of Night Soldiers, the story featuring a grander European river, known to us as famously as the Danube, but known by many other names as it snakes eastwards across the continent: from its Black Forest source as the Donau, into Vienna, then as the Dunaj through Slovakia, splitting Budapest in two, flowing as the Duna along the western edge of Serbia, before serving as the Romanian-Bulgarian border and emptying out, now as the Dunărea, into the Black Sea.

The Tweed, to my knowledge, remains the Tweed for its entire and somewhat shorter existence, and Strauss probably never wrote a famous waltz about the Tweed, but still, a river holds a certain fascination, especially when viewed from a bridge, and can be watched for hours as it goes on its way.

The path climbed alongside a beautiful viaduct, built at an angle across the river, which brought purrs of pleasure from Gary, something of a connoisseur of buildings and architecture and many other things besides. At the top we walked along the route of the former railway line, and continued on to meet a quiet road, where we were beset by giant killer winged creatures. However, we prevailed against them mainly by running away, crossing the Manor Brig, dating from 1707, and climbed a lung-burstingly steep hill, requiring a pause at the top, for thought, and chocolate and water, not to mention the recovery of air into the lungs. We had an exquisite view looking southwest along the Tweed valley, and, once we’d set off again and rounded the next corner, of Peebles itself nestled comfortably in its glen. 

It was downhill all the way from there, past a serious-looking horsey establishment, with a floodlit enclosure, and impressive looking horses grazing in a field. There was a sign on the roadside as we approached the main buildings.

On Tuesday I had walked on the other side of the glen, and as I neared Peebles Hydro and the main road I passed the end of some forest trails which are clearly well-used by mountain bikers. On the roadside near a cluster of houses was a sign, which I contend could have benefitted from some punctuation. It read

CYCLISTS SLOW DOWN CHILDREN & ANIMALS

I don’t think the writer of the sign intended to convey the message that children and animals were slowed down by cyclists, much as I don’t think the person who had created this sign with the wording

SLOW HORSES AND CHILDREN

intended us to think the local horses and children were a little dull.

But a little punctuation would have helped their cause.

We found ourselves in the southwestern suburbs of the town, sparking memories for me of house visits to a nearby client in my audiology days, and followed John Buchan Way signposts from there to the car park, once nearly heading down a driveway by mistake due to a questionable signpost placement.

This morning I reprised last night’s walking route, only running this time. I should say that I ran most of it, but punctuated the running with some walking at times, notably on the aforementioned hill climb.

It being earlier in the day, the giant killer winged beasties had not roused from their slumbers, but at that point in the route I stayed as quiet as I could, just in case, as quiet as someone whose lungs are bursting can, at any rate.

From the top of the hill, and the Peebles and Tweed Valley panoramas, I followed the same route into the suburbs, past houses with names like The Croft, and The Anchorage, the garage door of which was being raised just as I ran past. I glanced over hoping to see a fine boat moored inside, but sadly there was only a Jaguar SUV.

Along lanes squeezed narrow by tall nettles, dodging these with what I considered pretty nimble footwork, past the High School’s playing fields, and grass hockey pitches where a whole platoon of rabbits were performing various manoeuvres.

Forgot about the misleading signpost, found myself in the driveway briefly, made a sharp exit, down the lane I was supposed to, and then into the town itself, across bridges, up braes and down various wynds and gates, along the edge of Eddleston Water again, back to the caravan, a shower, lunch and a siesta.

Peebles, you were lovely. Deserving of more postcards.

Chocolate Digestives and Grammatical Pedantry

It’s a bad thing when you run out of chocolate digestives. This happened to us at work this week, but mercifully, Adi, our Admin Supremo, was on hand to dash across to Somerfield and save the day. He even got back with the goods before my tea got cold. This is top notch admin work, in my view. Our previous incumbents in the Admin Supremo position, notably Dish and Broon/Annie-Anne, would have been hard pushed to match this performance, tending to be more adept at scoffing the biscuits than supplying them. Dish, going by her comment on the last post, also appears to have developed the skill of playing ultimate frisbee with her buttocks, which strikes me as no mean feat. Can you throw as well as catch, Dish?

Anyway. Last week I accepted Colin Eye’s invitation to join him in a viewing of Spiderman 3. I accepted, somewhat against my better judgement, having been bored witless by Spidermans 1 and 2. But my alternative last Saturday was to spend a hand-wringing evening in the bar, examining another Holy Cross 2nd XI defeat (2 out of 2) and pondering how we might learn to catch a cricket ball (4 catches taken out of 20+ chances). Even for someone with my fondness for melancholy AND cricket, it seemed like an overly-depressing combination, so I opted for the cinema. I might have caught up on some sleep while I was there, had it not been so loud. The action sequences were fun, and I liked it when Spidey went to the dark side for a bit. I can even take the ridiculously far-fetched goings on, but what I just can’t abide is the mind-numbing tedium in between. If I wanted to watch somebody clumsily blundering their way through a relationship… well, let’s just say I don’t need any pointers on how to do that…

Speaking of mind-numbing tedium, I was reading a work-related newsletter recently, when a wonderful error caught my eye:

“For those currently waiting for NHS hearing aids we agree there needs to be a sustainable low weight solution…”

I’m presuming that they meant low wait, rather than casting aspersions on the lack of dieting success of the entire NHS audiology waiting list.

One of my co-pedants in the Apostrophe Protection Society, who refers to himself as the Comely Bank Branch, delights in observing mistakes like this in everyday life. He then texts them to me for my amusement. Consider the following messages I received in the last few months:

‘Birthdays’ at the east end of Princes St is closing down. One is encouraged to hurray while stocks last.

The Bristol City branch of Currys.digital is advertising the lunch of the Sony Playstation 3 on 23 March. Apparently stocks are limited.

I myself have noted that without leaving Queensferry St in Edinburgh, it is possible to unwinde with a drink at Halo after a day’s work, and then move on to sample the pre-threatre menu at Petit Paris. Before Christmas I also saw a Feastive Menu on offer in Burntisland, Fife. Perhaps my favourite of recent times was a warning sign in a hotel room which encouraged the occupant to advise Reception on their arrival “if you are disabled or hard of hearing which would effect your exit in the event of a fire”. I wasn’t aware that having a hearing loss enabled you to leave buildings, but then again, what do I know about such things.

So, Colin has now been mentioned in my last two blog entries, and as a fairly regular commenter should really be given a character page. As should Broon, really. However, the Blog Character Cabinet is pretty full. I think perhaps a couple of evictions are in order. I haven’t received any abuse from Friendy in a while – he must be on a shoogly hook. I like to keep these things democratic. Anyone care to vote someone off? Anonymous comments, for once, welcome 😉