trip to the Himalaya

Well, not the real Himalaya, but a taste of it just north of Moffat. Joanna had told me in the past about Craigieburn Garden and today we visited it along with Joanna's husband Aidan.

There is a lovely story behind the creation of this garden and since it's past 11pm, I'll refer you to this link to read about it. We spent nearly 3 hours wandering around this beautiful place and I have never before seen a garden of this size so full of interesting plants. We walked up the burn to the waterfalls, where there were hundreds of prayer flags and water-powered prayer wheels in amongst huge old beech trees and groves of Himalayan blue poppies. 

The house was open for teas - in the past it was visited frequently by Robert Burns, who came here to see Janet Lorimer (Chloris) and it was here that he wrote his song "Craigieburn Wood".

There is also a plant nursery and we bought primulas (here you can see Aidan carrying Joanna's haul back to the car), but it was not the plants which stole Joanna's heart today but a young Border Collie called Max (see extra). I think she may be back to see him again before too long :-)