Day 1 - Caerlaverock CastleAfter a pleasant evening in one of Carlisle's premiere hotels (or was that hostel - not too sure!) and a full english breakfast (which was really a bad idea!), we decided to head off and see if we could
revisit an old haunt of mine.I was last at Caerlaverock in 2000 filming for Screenhouse TV and having spent three days stood in the pouring rain watching re-enactors 'kill' each other with rubber swords, I was eager to escape back to my Headingley rabbithutch and return when the fake blood had been completely washed away.
The sunshine today was glorious and thankfully we were the only people stupis enough to be at the castle at 9.30am (apart from the lady taking the entrance money). Caerlaverock is a wonderful castle, quite different from the usual sort that we've all been dragged around many times before. The triangular build made it unique for its time - though it was attacked many times, it took vast armies to overcome the handful of peasants, nuns and Geordies that were inevitably left behind to 'wipe the walls down'.
The main reason I find Caerlaverock an interesting place is that the castle you can visit today is actually Caerlaverock version 2! Caerlaverock version 1 is two hundred meters nearer the Solway - it was abandoned when they (whoever owned it at the time) realised they had built it in the wrong place and it was also too small!! Imagine the Egyptians standing back and admiring the Great Pyramid and then realising that there had been a huge cock-up in town planning and they actually needed to start all over again. Alison has asked me to point our that the picture above was taken by her own fair hands and wasn't bought at all...I wonder where she gets her gift for photography from?
After a quick trip around the gift shop - where I bored the woman behind the counter silly with more 'tales of my TV career'. I honestly hadn't realised she had glazed over was about to fall off her chair. I was most disgruntled that Alison dragged me out of the shop before the words 'have I told you about the London Marathon?' had had a chance to pass my lips...From Caerlaverock to Largs (via Kilmarnock) - where Alison had once filmed for ITV (Holidays from Hell) and had enjoyed splendid views, a nice hotel and NARDINI'S CAFE - THE BEST DAMN ICE-CREAM IN THE WORLD.
As you can see, Nardini's has 'let itself go' in recent years and we turned up dreaming of huge cornets of creamy vanilla. Obviously this didn't happen - we'd only driven the best part of 100miles out of our way but that didn't matter. Largs' website also fails to mention that their premiere Ice-cream joint is our of business. Bugger!Finally landed in Helensburgh to a very 'computer friendly welcome'. The owner of the guest house is a techie of extremes. We have never seen such an array of gadgets in one room (we were dragged in to 'admire' his 'kit' - ooh a computer....how unusual - please tell me about dual core processors again!!!). We've been invited back for 'drinks' one evening - maybe we can watch how quickly he can defrag his hard-drives (six of them apparently - and more planned)!!!
The apartment is lovely, very clean and spacious and in the centre of Helensburgh - photos tomorrow.
We've had a quick drive to find a running route for tommorrow, spotted a nuclear submarine or two, grabbed a pizza and settled in to watch Top Gear. Nice!!!
posted by Unknown @ 10:54 AM
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