Roadside sunflowers accompanied us much of the way on Route 66. On Sunday’s southbound journey it was the seed heads of Rosebay Willowherb (known as Fireweed in the USA) which waved in the wind alongside fields, moors and forests.

We had spent the remainder of our time in Edinburgh catching up with a few things in town and cleaning the flat. One of the antique map sellers who used to be in the Canongate (the Carson Clark Gallery), then St Mary St, has moved to the New Town on the corner of Northumberland Street and Dundas Street. He is next to the Wally Dug, a pub that has been serving there since 1811. Chatting to the proprietor, we discovered that the reason behind his move was that his previous landlord had doubled the rent. He said that his business had been replaced with shops selling ‘tourist tat’. We browsed for a while but with diminishing free wall space, did not buy any more old maps.

We did find several books and some more music in Stockbridge and fortified by coffee, then walked back up the hill to the flat. After a rest, we were at the Filmhouse to see ‘I, Daniel Blake’, a very powerful and emotional film that our government should see.

Rain was forecast for most of the East Lothian coast on Sunday morning so a beach walk was out. We drove south towards Peebles and could see snow on the top of the Moorfoot Hills. It arrived a couple of weeks ago in the Cairngorms and last weekend the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue team were out. Driving through Traquair, we heard the travel news on the radio announce the first road closure of winter due to snow: the A939 between Cockbridge and Tomintoul. Later we heard of ferry cancellations between Oban, Barra and South Uist. I was interested to revisit this road (the B709) as it will be on my Smallwood to Edinburgh walk which I am planning to do in around 18 months time. The Gordon Arms Hotel by the Yarrow River and Mountbenger will be one overnight stop. Before we reached Eskdalemuir, there was a sign warning us of red squirrels crossing. We did not see any but did come across several buzzards who were feeding on a road kill while others were flying overhead. We also saw lots of pheasants by the roadside and James spotted a red grouse. One of my long walk stops will be at the Samye Ling Monastery,a centre of Tibetan Buddhism in the Scottish moors. Scaffolding was covering the Stupa today so here is a shot of the Buddha. The Fairy Hill opposite the monastery also has a shrine but exploration of that and the rest of the monastery will have to wait for another day.

Continuing southwards towards Langholm we heard that two mattresses had fallen off a vehicle on the M56 near Manchester Airport so the road was closed. James commented that perhaps they had been to Ikea, reminding me of a trip many years ago to the Ikea store at Warrington. James was too mean to pay the delivery charge so I was hanging on to flat pack bookshelves that were sticking out of the sun roof on a very windy day as we drove across the Thelwall Viaduct. We did make it home without mishap on that occasion. Langholm has a racecourse but nothing was happening on a winter Sunday afternoon. We were soon back on the motorway and home to continue planning our travels in 2017.