Dido - Here With Me (Remixes)
Suede - Brian Eno's Introducing the Band
Teresa Salgueiro - O Misterio
Various - Anne's Saturday Selection
Mott the Hoople - Compilation for Sid Smith
Today, a drive down to Kelso and a visit to Floors Castle, ancestral home of the Earls and Dukes of Roxburghe...
First, a tour of the house...
Rather opulent...
Find out more here - the title was originally bestowed in 1707 by Queen Anne, who oversaw the Union of Scotland and England to form Great Britain...
Interesting to note that Roxburghe was one of the main supporters of the Union with England...
Interesting to note that one of the main drivers for the Union was that most of Scottish "nobility" had had their wealth wiped out by the disastrous Darien Scheme to colonise parts of Panama...
Interesting to note that many of those leading the Union campaign (funded by England) had participated in the Darien Scheme...
England could not openly support the scheme for fear of invoking a war with Spain...
So it seems they stood by and watched it fail (whilst indeed undermining it) and then moved in on the aftermath to force through the Union to ensure only the English Parliament's choice of monarch would rule over both England and Scotland...
Politics eh?
And so it was that, funnily enough, participants - sorry, investors, most of the participants were dead - in the Darien Scheme were offered compensation from England should the Union go ahead...
While the background to the Union was complex and rife with horsetrading, on balance, whilst very unpopular indeed in Scotland at the time and so driven, on the Scottish side anyway, by a minority self-interest, overall, it was, in hindsight, very much to Scotland's advantage when comparing its situation pre Darien, post Darien and then, post the Union...
Anyway, the bottom line is of course that money goes to money, as everyone knows - it is the way of the world...
And so here we are looking round a lovely castle built on all of the above...
Then, a walk trough the woods...
...to the walled garden....
..and into the terrace cafe for lunch...
..including bread baked in a flower pot...
...and tasty salmon fish cakes...
Around the gardens...
Plants for sale...
...and herbaceous borders on display...
Despite looking long and hard at the wares, nothing was taken...
...apart from, after a walk back to the castle, a welcome seat...
...overlooking the borders countryside...
Then the short drive into Kelso...
...from the look of it, a town in terminal decline - the contrast between the opulence of the castle and the run-down depressed and depressing town could hardly have been more stark..
So what did we do?
We had coffee and cake of course...
...at Cafe U...
The journey time was 75 minutes each way...
Back home, worked on a 45 minute, no singles allowed, Mott the Hoople compilation for chum Sid Smith - to try and convince him their songs are better than those of Led Zeppelin...
On repeated listening, I realised Mott were good (and better than Zep) but probably not as good as over forty years of looking at them through rose-tinted glasses has led me to believe...
Still good though...
I doubt Mr S will be convinced...
In the evening, out to meet with brother in law Keith and lovely wife Maureen - firstly, for drinks at Tonic, then on to the Amber Rose to take part in the Quiz Night run by nephew Craig...
We didn't think we'd done that well...
...however, it seems the competition wasn't up to much and the prize of thirty squid was duly received...
a good end to a good day...
Highlight of the Day : Visit to a castle...
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