Back to Kirkcudbright

May 20th 2015

Back to Kirkcudbright     

Another lovely day and we're off to Kirkcudbright again.  This time I went with Grannymac and her very good friend, Sally.  We did the same as before to start with, a look at the harbour, a bit of shopping and a bite to eat.  Then Grannymac took some photographs of the colourful houses in Kirkcudbright, so have a look around with us.

The building at the end of this street is the Tolbooth which has a very striking weathervane.  Grannymac has a huge collection of weathervane photographs so she had to include this one.

Grannymac wanted to go back to the garden at Broughton House for a short while to see the difference a month had made since our earlier visit.  Maybe I'll be able to do a bit more climbing!  I didn't know at that point what kind of adventure I was going to have!  The first encounter we had was with the Broughton House cat, Tizzy.  There used to be another very friendly cat called Oscar, who had only one eye - Grannymac and Sally met him on an earlier visit a few years ago.  While he was there, Tizzy used to keep out of the way, but now that Oscar has gone, Tizzy has come out of her shell and likes to greet visitors.  She looks quite friendly and harmless, doesn't she?

We'll see!  In the meantime here are a few of the beautiful flowers we saw, including a magnolia which gave me my first chance to climb this afternoon.

THEN, I was just sitting quietly, watching Grannymac taking photos, when this happened.

I was so surprised that I lost my balance and fell over!  I know she only wanted to play, (at least I think that was what she was planning), but she gave me such a fright.

By the time I got myself up again and sat down to get my breathe back, I had to tell her I didn't really want to play.  Maybe another time, as long as she doesn't give me such a fright first.

When Grannymac picked me up, Tizzy went away in a huff and we moved on to look at some more beautiful flowers, including one of Grayymac's favourites, auriculas.

There was a lot of apple blossom on the apple trees - I was able to have a good close look when I climbed up.

The ladies at the NTS house are always very friendly and Grannymac had a little chat with them before leaving.  They asked if she would send them some of her photographs, especially those with me and Tizzy, for them to use on their website.  On the way out, Grannymac noticed an interesting letterbox which she had missed on all of her previous visits, maybe because the door had usually been open before.

Before we left Kirkcudbright, we stopped at a small nursery which specialises in growing many different varieties of violas.  The smell of some of them was lovely.

There was a walled garden which was being worked on, a bit too early in the season to be at its best but interesting to see all the same.  There was the biggest pot/planter I have ever seen - you can judge its size when you see me sitting in it.  A few other photos show some of the other interesting things we saw.

THEN, would you belive it, along came another CAT - I kept well out of the way this time, just in case!  We don't know this one's name, but he/she was very friendly with Sally and, I must admit, he/she is very handsome.

To finish our day out, we then travelled about 10 miles further along the road to another pleasant little town called Gatehouse-of-Fleet, which really deserves a day out to itself, especially as we found a great eating place!  Our main purpose here today was to visit the bluebell woods at Carstramon, before the flowers were over for this year.  Grannymac had been twice before a long time ago, but she found it difficult to find the exact paths which had been so exceptional.  However, it was getting to be late in the day and we were tired, so we didn't explore too much - Grannymac took a few photos even though they were not what she had really hoped for.

It had clouded over by this time and we had a long way to go to get home.  It had been a most enjoyable day out even though I won't ever forget that cat, Tizzy.

What next?