Into the Highlands

14/8/2018

With Santiago safely moored with the bottom blackers,  we escape by car to first our cousins in Yorkshire, then to cousins on Morecombe Bay in Lancashire.  Delightful to catch up as usual, and the familiar traverse of the Yorkshire Dales, the quilted land stitched with stone walls,  the undulating hills of the Forest of Bowland to Kirkby Lonsdale,  and the contrasting sweep of the flat lands bounding Morecombe Bay, dyke fringed.

From Lancashire we headed north up the M6, into the unknown lands of Carlisle, skirting Glasgow, pulled further north through the high moors, sheep dotted, glacier etched. Forests, heather,  wide high skies.  North of Stirling our journey heads onto narrow B roads, sweeping high, plunging along burns, to the small town of Comrie. Here we will stay for 4 days,  in the upstairs flat in the Rennie Mackintosh building, designed in 1903, currently under the protection of the Landmark Trust- worth researching their website if a quirky historic building appeals.

Our flat has a living room in the curved tower, with 3 tall windows overlooking the church opposite, and the main street, light flooded.  Furnished with pieces either by RM, or in his style.

Tomorrow if the rain holds off, a walk to the Devil's Cauldron, legs drenched in insecticide to protect against the epidemic of Lyme disease carrying ticks.

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