Bordering on the Sublime

Railway Bridge over the Tweed at Berwick upon Tweed, Englandshire. I was on my way to Dotty with 20 minutes between the train from Dunbar and the bus to Kelso, so I thought I'd have a wander. After a bit of random navigation, I found a really steep and overgrown path down towards the river and eventually this spectacular view.

The bus meanders along by the Tweed to Kelso, a beautiful journey which crosses back into Scotland about half way there at Coldstream - the border is actually on the Tweed there, so the "Welcome to Scotland" sign is right after the bridge.

Being so close to the border, Berwick has been Scottish and English over the years. This leads to the excellent story that Berwick upon Tweed was included in the declaration of the Crimean War, but was then left out of the Treaty of Paris of 1856 and so was technically at war with Russia for 110 years - until the mayor of Berwick declared peace and announced that "the people of Russia ... can sleep peacefully in their beds."

After dropping off my bag at Dotty's we headed out to Cobbles Inn where we were lucky to get a table in the restaurant. What a wonderful place! The food is wonderful, the beer is from the Tempest Brewery, the staff are the nicest and warmest you could meet and the Kelso Folk Club were in full force. What a joyous racket! I spoke to several of them, in particular Keith who told me all about his squeezebox.