Edinburgh - an armchair read

The combination of Covid-19 travel restrictions and greater awareness about the way polluting ways of getting around are heating up the planet has already created a new interest in slow travel and local travel. Here's a look at the way Edinburgh used to be. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs). 

You can buy cards of this design on the publisher's
website, the evocatively named Manderley Press.

I have only ever arrived at Edinburgh by train: it's a very dramatic arrival point. Emerging from the station you are soon surrounded by the greenery of Princes Street Gardens with the westward vista of cliffs dominated by the castle.

No other UK city offers the visitor quite such an entrance, which might be why the first book from new publishing house, Manderley Press, is a reprint of Robert Louis Stephenson's classic, Edinburgh: picturesque notes. As a bonus it's got an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith (author of Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and 44 Scotland Street) who is probably the city’s current most famous writer in residence. 

This travel guide may be an oldie, first published in 1878 when RLS was just pushing 30-years-old, but Edinburgh is still super-readable. Savouring it in London I'm desperate to go this Scottish city again and of course it helps that my daughter is now working in Leith. In this travelogue you take a journey through (mostly) bad weather around the Old Town via the New Town, up on to Calton Hill via the Parliament and Greyfriars church, sometimes catching views of the Pentland Hills spotting rich and poor. It’s all today familiar but you are also time travelling through the Georgian period in this rocky Scottish city. 

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) is well known for his classic adventure tales, Treasure Island and Kidnapped but was also a popular travel writer back in the day. RLS spent most of his early life living at 17 Herriot Row in Edinburgh's New Town where he developed his storytelling skills, despite periods of ill health, aided by the magic of gas lights indoors and a habit of wandering the streets day or night. This juxtaposition of comfortable family life, middle class gossip and Edinburgh poverty must have helped him conjure up the chilling story of The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde - spoiler alert they are one and the same person. Similarly, when RLS writes about Edinburgh he makes clear how the city he loves also has two sides - the gleaming beauty and the “slatternly” (as he calls it) poverty which was mostly down the hill or almost underground. That said, there's no moralising in the book, it's more a dreamlike wander through Edinburgh’s weather-struck streets – sometimes peeping through a window, but never going inside - and I heartily recommend it. 

I'm now very keen to see how my memory matches with RLS's version and the reality. And the perfect excuse to find out might well be to visit Edinburgh's big Christmas markets which run until the new year.

Of course for keen readers could hunt out a secondhand copy, but if that’s not available then I loved this 2021 edition from www.manderleypress.com which specialises in finding books that celebrate "memorable buildings, cities and landmarks". The print, was also a generous size with decent leading, perfect for anyone with over 40-year-old eyesight. The splendid book jacket and internal illustrations are by another Edinburgh fan and resident, Ian McIntosh, who is sometimes known as the man “who draws for Alexander McCall Smith”.  What's lovely is that these are also available as greeting cards - perfect for Edinburgh fans.

• Edinburgh by Robert Louis Stevenson, Manderley Press, Nov 2021. £16.99
• Edinburgh's Christmas markets are from 20 November 2021 - 4 January 2022.

Hadrian's Wall Path - following Roman footsteps

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Instead of lazing on family holidays guest poster Pete May took his family for a very long walk along Hadrian's Wall. It not only gave his family a taste of life as a Roman, it even got his young daughters walking the whole way across England (the secret is don't rush!).

Pete and daughters Nell and Lola had different views about cows
on the footpath at the early and late parts of the 84 mile long walk.

The Hadrian’s Wall Path is one of the most thrilling long-distance walks anywhere in the world and now there's a new booklet to help you conquer it. The route is only 84 miles long  - a lot easier to walk than to make - and you won’t have any problem remembering when it was built, as the accompanying walkers’ bus is the AD122.

Hadrian’s Wall Path by Mark Richards is a comprehensive guide to the path, with full directions, maps, and information about all the towns and places to stay on the route.

Real Roman remains. Some can even be clambered over.

We started our walk at Arbeia fort at South Shields, where the foundations of the Roman fort can still be traced and several rooms have been reconstructed. There’s no wall left in Newcastle, but the thrill of seeing your first section of wall at Heddon-on-the-Wall and then the angular Brunton Turret is unforgettable. Some superb Roman forts can be seen on the walk, including Chesters with its well-preserved bathhouse with alcoves for robes, and the foundations of a Roman bridge across the Tyne. The museum there has many excellent statues and gravestones too.

History, wildlife, fresh air, geography... looking at how little the girls are
it's amazing to think they walked the 84 miles. We broke it into several mini
holidays (yes, we call walks holidays) and rewarded walkers with hearty pub meals
of chips at the end of the day.

You soon realise what a massive project the wall was, with regular mile castles and turrets designed to control the border between Roman England and Scotland. In places it is still taller than an adult, though it would once have been three times bigger. There are massive earthworks too, with the Vallum ditch visible on the south side and a ditch to the north. It’s hard to believe, but many of the conscripts manning the windswept wall would have been from places as far afield as modern-day Iraq.

Nearing the end - the Solway Firth.

The most stunning section is the central section over remote crags, where the famous Sycamore Gap (used for filming Robin Hood) is situated.

• At Housesteads fort there are intact communal Roman toilets, which will certainly stimulate some family lavatory humour. 
• The fort at Vindolanda was unforgettable as we saw archaeologists digging up a Roman sandal and a cow’s skull used for target practice. It’s here that old Roman messages on papyrus have been found in the waste ditches referring to “Brittunculi” (wretched little Brits). 
• It’s worth trying the Twice Brewed Inn too for good beer and rooms. 

The fort at Birdoswald was another highlight. After going through Carlisle the walk ended with the beautiful sweeping estuary of the Solway Firth and for the adults, a well-deserved pint.

Blog guest poster Pete May on the Hadrian's Wall path - he liked to make
detours to wherever football was being played!

One very useful aspect of the book is that it covers Hadrian’s Wall Path from both west to east and east to west, so that you can start at either South Shields or Bowness-on-Solway. It can be completed in one week or a more leisurely fortnight - but whatever your pace those 84 miles will feel like you’re walking with the Romans in Britain.

• Hadrian’s Wall Pathby Mark Richards is published by Cicerone, price £14.95.
• Pete May blogs at hammersintheheart.blogspot.com

Thinking about WW1 - home from home and Ypres

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post looks at ways to remember the many people who died in WW1 - especially in the area around Ypres, Belgium. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

My mum sent a sweet email recently to her extended family - siblings, half-siblings, children, grandchildren - letting them know how she was joining into the British Legion's Everyman Remembered campaign:

I have sent a poppy via the British Legion to be placed on the gravestone of our grandfather, Captain Mervyn Hamilton, who is buried in the communal civilian cemetery at Poperinge near Ypres. It will have the following text attached: "From his many grandchildren and great grandchildren - so proud of him and so grateful for the good life that his sacrifice made possible."

My great grandfather, Mervyn Hamilton, was 35 years when he was injured in the first battle near Ypres in Belgium. He was taken to the hospital nearby (i'm guessing this was at Poperinge) and his wife was contacted via a handwritten letter from the nurses to come over and help nurse him.  Then just as she and her sister were about to board the boat to go to him a telegram came - he'd died of his wounds on 28 November 1914.

I'm told that only 16 villages in the UK didn't lose a single person during World War One - certainly most have a war memorial. A hundred years on it's easy to forget that people living in the cities were affected too. But that's changing. Just recently this notice commemorating the huge sacrifice of WW1 went up in Islington where I live. It's 100 years late, yes, but a reminder that back in 1914 cities were often much more like villages. The names on this plaque are of people who were family, or knew each other, played together as kids in this street, or were known by other families in the area. Heartbreaking.

Even in the middle of London you can find memorials to the many men who died during WW1. Sometimes they are crosses in churches or outside a place of worship, sometimes just a laminated list.

Although the Western Front stretched from Belgium across to Switzerland - a colossal distance - some of the bloodiest battles were fought at Ypres in Belgium. Poor Belgium, throughout history it's been used as a battleground for other people choosing to clash on relatively flat, dry land (I'm thinking of the 10,000 men who died in just one day a century before that at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo).

Ypres was an impressive Medieval town with a vast, slightly wonky grand square. However during the course of 1914-1918 it was shelled to bits. There's only one really old house left. The rest are perfect copies of a Medieval town, put up after the war ended.

Looking across from the WW1 museum at Ypres to the Menin Gate (the white arch)

To mark the start of WW1 in August 1914 an exceptional interactive museum explaining WW1 - or at any rate detailing the battles and following the impact these battles had on people - is at Ypres. Flanders Field Museum is an international place switching between English, French, Flemish and German with ease. But all languages seem to be catered for. The overall effect is pretty sad - at just one of the battles of the Somme more than 1,000,000 soldiers died. So many soldiers of every side were young men, many were what we now call teenagers. And the dying was rarely instant. Men were injured by shells or fragments thrown up by the shells or they were left wounded in No Man's Land. Some even drowned in the terrible mud between the trenches. One of the underground mine explosions was so loud it was allegedly heard in London - imagine how many people were killed on both sides when that was detonated?

Any flat, muddy, rain drenched area brings out sympathy - for wheelchair and buggy users as well as the wrongly shod. But as for comparing a muddy park, or a flooded Somerset levels, with Ypres that is just wrong. This was an incomparable hell.

The Menin Gate is a huge memorial to all the British & Commonwealth soldiers
who died in WW1 and whose bodies were not found. Every night at 8pm the Last Post
is played as a memory and a thank you for their sacrifice.

Famously the officers who broke down (unable to speak/move or with terrible nightmares and serious shakes) ended up being treated by Dr Rivers at Craiglockhart in Scotland. There he convinced them that they could get better - and go back to fight. That was the fate of two amazing war poets, Siegfried Sasson and the younger Wilfred Owen (who died). This has been fictionally charted in Pat Barker's Booker-winning anti-war triology, Regeneration. The first book is especially good.

If you are thinking of finding a connection with WW1 and the on-line diaries of soldiers, or the war memorial crosses in villages all over the UK isn't enough, do read Resurgence. It'll certainly help crystalise your feelings about war, long past or now. And that may inspire you to do something that Siegfried Sasson or H G Wells would have approved of.

I'm certainly going to look at the Tower of London's field of ceramic poppies - a vast art work springing up in the moat. Eventually there will be 888,246 one for each British and colonial soldier who died in the war. This is a fundraiser, running from August until 11 November. If you want to buy one of the ceramic poppies for £25 see how here.

Over to you
What battlefields have you been to in the UK that helped you connect with the people caught up in past conflicts? And how did that effect you? Did you have a relative who "fell" during WW1 - what has your family done to commemorate that person?

Keeping it clean with tweed and soap

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. On a short Saturday city stroll we met anachronistic cyclists, a Korean soap sculpture and a Madagascan rafia hat collector. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

At the weekend Nell, 12, and I went for a wander around London - bits we didn't know to cheer up some rather dull chores. Living in London it's easy to find new places to discover but we lucked out when 500 tweedy looking folk, some on Penny Farthing bikes, came to a halt beside us before commencing a parade around London.

Turns out they were on the Tweed Run - a celebration of well-attired gentlemen and ladies who raise a lot for charity. It looked a lot of fun wearing what is conventionally traditional clothing (and very beautiful) on a bike - a sartorially startling contrast to the luminous lycra most London cyclists wear.

This sculpture is made from soap by a Korean artist.

Bubbles
In Cavendish Square behind department store John Lewis there is a statue of the Butcher of Cumberland. It looks like marble, but on close inspection we discovered it is made from 2.7 tonnes of Honey I Washed The Kids soap. The idea is that it crumbles away releasing a Lush-like smell. It's made by Korean sculptor Meekyoung Shin, see a short video here. Disappointingly we couldn't smell anything, maybe it needs more sun and less rain.

Later that day we went to tea with a woman who has collected hats from all over Madagascar. There were baby hats, dating hats, keeping the sun off hats and purse hats - all whipped up with dried materials. Her hats were the real McCoy, collected 30 years ago, but on the web I found the Madagascan Hat Company, a Fair Trade outfit that makes amazing raffia hats using traditional skills but with a twist that makes them more suitable for modern, tourist heads, see here.

Not bad for a short day's city stroll!

Romancing secret gardens

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post is about the ways icy winds and snow flake flurries makes me think about gardens offering proper atmsophere. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).  

First dog violets of 2013.

Botanical gardens are some of my favourite places - perhaps because they seem such secret treasures oftenlocated by really busy streets. There's a lovely one off Oxford High Street (the oldest in Britain); a deer-filled one just three miles from Aberdeen (Cruickshank) and a jungle with a collection of rare trees just behind the prison in Honiara (Solomon Islands). But if I'm honest my favourite "place" in the world is The Secret Garden. 

Nell and friends ready to head off to see the musical of The Secret Garden as a birthday treat.

Yes, I know it's a book about coming to terms with grief and yourself, but the way Mary, Colin and Dickon wake up the locked garden just off the Yorkshire moors turns me irresistibly towards what to do about spring. And it's a longing/love that I've tried to pass on to my daughters and their friends (see pic above).

Every year the season I wait and wait for catches me by surprise. It's only February and already I've had a wish on the first snowdrops, comfrey, primroses, daffodils and dog violets. In a month's time I suspect my habit of wishing when I see the first of the year's plants will be impossible to maintain as new green shoots pop up and bloom so fast once the soil warms up.

Which is why I took my family to Cornwall's famous Lost Gardens of Helligan in deep winter. It was uncrowded and the endless Victorian walled gardens made it irresistible. A special delight is being able to explore it all - and there are acres (including a Lost Valley and a Jungle, see pic below) so leave yourself a lot of time - and then sit quietly in the Italian Garden. The Italian Garden is the first one the Lost Garden creators restored back in 1990 and even if you missed the BBC documentary about how the gardens were restored to full productive force you can see the film at the site. When John Nelson and Tim Smit first started to breathe gardening life back into this garden, the ornamental pond from the 1920s was just a plinth; the statue of Putto with a Dolphin missing; the gate on its hinges and the whole area a knotted mess of laurel and bramble. Oh but it's beautiful now with sunlight, olive trees and herbs - an evocative spot that rushes you to the Mediterranean (even in winter!).

If you go in the right season you should be able to see pineapples growing (they are hot housed using tonnes of manure), melons and some plants like camellias and rhododendrons which could be the oldest in the UK.

It's steep, wet-slippery and seems
overgrown - proper jungle, but
it's found in Cornwall.

Who will you find in the lost gardens?

The Lost Gardens of Heligan are a place of wonder and fantasy. You can fixate about how they were restored, get lost in the acreage, daydream or bird spot in the shepherd's hut that's been parked by the lakes at the garden's far end, or just play travel games as you get lost - and find yourself again - in the many walled gardens. Mystery, peace, history... just some of the feelings this journey to a secret garden offers.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan at Pentewan are open daily (except xmas day and boxing day) from 10am. There is a direct bus from St Austell train station (takes 20-30mins). More info see www.heligan.com or tel 01726 845100.

More posts on gardens - see guest post by Pete May of Joy of Essex about Warley Place, Essex
More posts on Cornwall - see Eden Project.
Books about gardens - Sleeping Beauty, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce, Atonement (it's where Ian McEwan starts the action and misunderstandings).

Over to you
What's your favourite garden that tricks you into thinking you've left the UK thanks to atmospheric planting and paths?

World's best long distance walks

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to use your walking shoes to take you over the horizon - and away to Rome and even Santiago de Compostela. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs)   

My family is so very close to finishing the Capital Ring - a 70 mile (126km) route circling London. Sometimes I worry about finishing it - we'll end the joy of discovering new bits of London. Highlights include the Brent reservoir used for a long-ago Olympics, the art deco 1930s splendour of Eltham Palace, a peep into the grand schooling of Harrow School and the endless views of London from hills you didn't know existed. Honestly it's like tramping over the seven hills of Rome.

To compensate my loss there are some wonderful long-distance paths around the UK (and nearby) that could perhaps be revisited and allow me to dream up being in another place altogether.

Five best long-distance walks

• Camino de Santiago de Compostela - the route of St James (patron saint's day 25 July). I've met people who have walked this in the sharp winds of April with a baby on their back. I've seen the film with Martin Sheen and son, The Way, and long ago I stayed in the stunning parador (hotel) at Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Somewhere in the back of my mind I want to try this 780km journey too, but it's one that will have to wait for the children to leave school. Indeed if you go past the cathedral you can end at Finisterre, which Medievals thought was "the end of the world". More info at this website.
• Walk with the Romans along Hadrian's Wall. We've nearly managed the whole 135km, just a short two, maybe three, day section left between Newcastle and Hexham. The May half term is pencilled in, but we may have to give up on this idea as Nell, 10, is very wary of cows and they will certainly be out in the fields by then. Bulls and all. See a previous entry on this blog here about the moment we reached the end (before quite completing the beginning).
  
• West Highland Way - runs 152km from Glasgow to Fort William uphill. Well, as good as uphill. It's midge heaven and the few chunks I've tried out (along Loch Lomond for instance) are remarkably free of snack shops which makes walking more of a slog. Perhaps this is the one that best echoes Camino de Santiago de Compostela?
  
  
• Coast to Coast - success! Pete and I spent three years popping up and down to the Lake District in order to walk Alfred Wainwright's fabulous 190 mile path (sorry, it has to be miles in respect to AW's memory) from St Bees Head over to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire (dreamt up in 1973, more info here). I'd never heard of Wainwright when Pete first suggested the idea. Now I am willing to watch reruns of his extremely slow TV programme, just to get back in the zen mood of walking through the Lake District with my eyes mostly on a compass rather than mountain tops...
  
  A tip from the cantankerous AW: "If you must take a companion, take one who is silent."
  
  I was quite upset when an energetic friend and her husband managed to cycle 225km on the C2C (a very similar route) in a weekend - the time it took my lumbering feet seemed to add to the magic of the journey. But if you are less hardy, but still speed-inclined try the 12-20 day holidays run by this group.
  
  
• Across India - isn't this what Gandhi did in some form of anti-British protest involving salt? Have you seen the size of India? 

Over to you
Where have you walked in the UK that makes you think you could be somewhere else in the world?

Following Harry Potter

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell took three months off in 2007 to travel around Britain visiting the places here that should be abroad. Now we're home, but still enjoying carbon lite travelling. Here's how...

Fiction is always nother country: but JK Rowling's Harry Potter world seems to be an inevitable part of our family's adventures. Here's four places I can recommend for Harry Potter fans, whatever their age:

1 Christ Church Hall, Oxford is Hogwarts' dining hall
We've just been to the Sunday Times Literary Festival in Oxford to listen to three great modern children's writers - Blue Peter's 2009 book winner Ali Sparkes with Frozen in Time, Frank Cottrel Boyce whose written Cosmic, Framed and Millions (and plenty of others) and new on the scene Harriet Goodwin with the excellent Boy Who Fell Down Exit 43.

2 Elephant House (cafe), Edinburgh is Harry Potters's birthplace
Lap up the atmosphere - and the craggy castle views - even though JK Rowling may not visit much now. This also does great breakfasts if you've just got off the night train... See opening times here.

3 Kings Cross Station is home of Platform 9 and three/quarters
Arguably London's best station, currently near the end of its underground revamp, and also the way to Norfolk, Yorkshire, the Lake District and other favourite places...

4 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland is Hogwarts
This castle is a fantastic place to visit and if you get tired of the gardens, the rampards, the Harry Potter memorabilia (especially HP and the Philosopher's Stone), the infamous poison garden, the treehouse cafe - is it possible to get tired of such delights? - then you can head to the famous secondhand bookshopnearby. Barter Books is known as the biggest 2h bookshop in Britain and the source of the recent craze for mugs, key fobs, posters etc telling us to "Keep Calm and Carry On". See Guardian feature here.

5 Isle of Man has Gringots Bank
Might need to check this... but a trip to Isle of Man (take the ferry from Liverpool) exits you not just from England but Europe too - an utterly exotic destination only a couple of sea hours away.

It never snows around Halloween

You know how the weather is getting stranger? This post is from Nicola Baird.

Last week we went to Edinburgh on the night train - very exciting. But it was even more exciting wheeling the suitcases from our door to the tube station thanks to giant-sized snowflakes. Everyone was grinning (well we knew it would melt soon) and taking pix on their phones. We all did too.

And then we got to Edinburgh and it was a bit chillier than London. But the skies were utterly blue. And then we met the witches...

Athens of the north: battlefields and poppies

We've been to Edinburgh before, but never up Calton Hill with it's fantastic views of the Castle, Arthur's Seat - and the Firth of Forth. And once you've had a picnic there's the memorials. The Parthenon copy (still with scaffolding!) was a war memorial to fallen soldiers at Waterloo and the construction that led to the city being dubbed "the Athens of the North". This post is from Nicola Baird

Scotland is proud of its war contribution (even if colonisation has been air brushed out of history up at its national museum), with memorials of generals and "the fallen" in all the best places.


Up at Edinburgh Castle there's Ensign Ewart's marble block which marks the "lucky" solider who grabbed the French eagle for our forces. Impressive as this was the memorial didn't go up until 1938. But it did spawn 1,000 demands for large golden mirrors encircled by a cowed eagle - something still very on trend. There were two in the appartment we borrowed!

War still seems very distant even if there's never yet been a whole day of peace in the world I've lived in. See more about how to resolve this at War Child here. Meanwhile Lola is learning about the second World War and perhaps understanding how the first World War carnage (from 1914-1918) helped lead nations into another six years of war in 1939.

<<>Mervyn James Hamilton, a soldier who died in November 1914 from his wounds. Phoebe (we know her as Gebe and Lola was old enough to have several Christmases with her and also went to her funeral) never knew her dad. She was yet another generation raised by single mothers.

<< href="http://www.gordonhighlanders.com/">Gordon Highlanders at Scotland's National War Memorial, within the grounds of Edinburgh Castle, see more here. I don't think we were meant to take pictures, so many apologies.

Nell had a good word for war memorabilia: on a sunny day the cannons provide the best seat for views across to the Firth of Forth and beyond...

And then Lola <<>I believe in Yesterday (Jonathan Cape) and look for the battle scenes.

My conclusion is that we all left our attempt at remembrance a little confused.

Edinburgh food miles

When I’m at home there’s chard (well, mostly just chard) less than two metres from our kitchen table. So how can cities that seem even less green than London shorten the distances food is transported from farm to plate? This post is from Nicola Baird.

Around Edinburgh the food is good. We’ve had pumpkin broth, baked potato with chickpea salad, local beers and the promise of fair trade or locally sourced ingredients at many cafes. But I can’t help noticing that there aren’t many places to grow for the people living in the big apartments that make up the New Town (even if grass rooves have been spotted, see pic above, in the Old Town area). As a result every grassy square (or more usually circle) we stroll past I imagine being turned into allotments.

It turns out I’m not dreaming alone. Energetic MA art student, Helen Johnson, has transformed the quadrangle at Edinburgh College of Art into an 18ft diameter veg plot between work on her final, weaving sea kelp. The plot has three raised beds, is already producing spinach and leeks and has a contract to supply the college canteen. Helen says it was inspired by the work of Joseph Beuys – the famous German sculptor with a colourful past, including a lucky escape from his crashed plane and the birth of the Green party.

And in early October the Scottish Government ordered public bodies to search for extra land that could be made available for public allotments. Already 3,000 people are on the waiting list – half of them in Edinburgh where there are 1,268 plots (rented for around £48 a year). Apparently it takes seven years to get to the top of the list…

Here’s my tip for Scotland’s rural affairs secretary, Richard Lochead, turn a blind eye to gardening on the green swathes that pepper Edinburgh. The Museum of Modern Art would be a good place to start, then the grassy makeover opposite Harvey Nichols and finally bulk buy a load of containers so people can try growing food up front.

It's a local beach

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

We have just been treated to two luxury days staying with my cousin, Dermot, and his family who live in the Scottish Borders. Their house is fabulously comfortable and they were really hospitable – but we’d just had four days at a youth hostel where living is very spartan so this seemed an extra treat. They also nursed our various ailments through a combination of super-strength cough medicine, a Duns GP for Pete whose swelling ankle looked as if he had developed gout, plus providing perfect entertainment for the kids – swimming, tennis, a giant doll’s house and two black dogs to cuddle.

After we’d bathed in Jo Malone and caught up on family matters we were ready for a trip to the beach to walk the dogs, Bramble and her daughter Mia. Miranda (my cousin's wife) drove us in a Land-Rover she’d bought off e-Bay (and there was I thinking that jeans were a daring purchase) to a spot that only the locals know.

It was a classic Northumberland beach with huge dunes and then miles of sand. In the distance we could just make out the island before Holy Island. We walked up to the fishermen dealing with his lobster pots and then back again – Miranda pointing out the razor-shells that you can apparently lure out by filling their holes with salt, but cannot dig down into the sand and find.

Afterwards we went to a fish stall selling the Eyemouth catch at a farm shop and bought prawns, slices of lobster tails and wild sea trout. This was a real aberration as Pete and I rarely eat fish – I don’t think I have yet this year, and I didn’t last year – so no wonder it felt like an absolute treat. This has to be the best beach walking morning I’ve ever had.

Crossing the border

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (here's Pete in Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland minutes after crossing back from Scotland)

By train you just don't notice the border, but if you go by road from England into Scotland then you are in for a treat. First a warning notice that in a mile you'll hit the border and then at 60mph you can enjoy flashing past the Scottish blue and white flags. You can even park at a border stopping point and take a photo.

But coming back there's far less fan fare and if the van selling styrofoam cups of tea has closed then there aren't even any flags (though they use a Union Jack not the red and white cross of St George). This is a terrible anti-climax, but must be a legacy of history, for the locals reckon you are in Northumberland first, Britain second, England last. And for that reason there are days when you might also snatch a glimpse of the Northumberland flag, which from a distance looks like yellowing teeth in rotting orange gums. Up close it's a great deal more regal - and one you will find on car bumpers and house windows throughout the county.

Feeding seals in the harbour

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Nothing beats the feeling of being in the right place at the right time. And today we did this: turning up just as the old boy who runs the fish stall on the harbour front was chalking up that he'd reopen when it stopped raining. We'd come to Eyemouth, the first Scottish town after border, after hearing that you could dangle bits of mackrel on a stick over the harbour wall and see them being eaten up by some seals.

Of course we didn't believe this. But we came anyway (it's just by the Contented Sole pub) and now our provider of fish seemed to be shutting up shop. At just that moment a sleek, grey seal head bobbed up in the harbour, and then another. Seals are enormous - far bigger than the children - and these ones had the most appealing faces, quite friendly and dog-like with mottled waistcoats and nostrils they can open and close with dramatic precision.

"They've all got names," said the man - practically frozen as though it's only 14C today it's cold enough and wet enough to make your fingers tingle and your nose run. We looked down at the four bobbing blubber bodies and ahhed enough to make the old salt melt. He handed us a packet of chopped up raw fish in a dripping plastic bag of blood which normally veggie-fanatic Lola wouldn't dream of touching. But given the chance to feed seals she latched the fish on to the clothes peg and dangled it over - soon finding new names for the four gorgeous seals below us. There was One Eye, Thin Face and TO COME.

We spent a long time dishing out our mackrel and then admiring the seals below us. It was magical - the best #2 I've ever spent. Of course if we'd been really canny we'd have arrived in dry weather (!) and watched someone else pay for the privilege. Meanwhile the seals of Eyemouth are on to a very good thing, not so long ago the fishermen used to shoot them - now you pay for a pot of sea food and get a free bag of fish bits to provide them with snacks. Result: seal satisfaction, plus (possibly) the best fed seals in Britain. If you can't see them bobbing around in the harbour then they'll be lying on the rocks trying to digest the quantities of fish they are gifted by the new generation of seal hunters.

As a way for fishermen to make money this is brilliant. Pete says he's seen something similar in Australia at Penguin Beach - there are so many tourists for the feeding parade that the locals have knocked up a stadium. Further north entrepeneurs are feeding chickens to salt-water crocodiles which makes for a dramatic animal-feeding highlight in a tourist itinterary. Unfortunately it's also causing fishermen - especially the occasional fisherman - to have the biggest scare of their lives when they dangle over a bit of bait and find it snapped up by a mega-sized crocodile. Then again that story might be a total fable, and Australian urban myth, told only to the raw prawns at the barbie.

But the seals were real. Get up here and see for yourself.

Spanish madness

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola (look to the far left of the pic to enjoy the crazy window designs on the Scottish Parliament. Pete is looking longingly towards Arthur's Seat)

Scotland's new parliament building opposite Holyrood Palace may not have many signs up, but it doesn't need them thanks to the crazy, hot, eccentric design provided by a Spanish architect.

Pacing around its fluid roofs, or even driving past in a tour bus or taxi, you know you are in the presence of a building with immense character. It's architecture, but not as most of us know it. An unmissable experience.

The building - housing the 129 SMPs (Scottish members of parliament) was hugely controversial, not least because it cost #414 million pounds, approx 400 million over budget.

Perhaps worse was its late opening (2004 instead of 2001) and the architect, Spaniard Enric Miralles dying early on in the job (July 2001) taking many secrets to the grave despite the project being taken over by his widow Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT/RMJM Ltd).

It won the Stirling Prize for Architecture - nothing else stood a chance really. This is what the judges said about the building: "[it] manifests itself as an attempt at an organic transition between the city and the drama of the Scottish countryside surrounding it" - an effect helped by its landscaping. The ability of both the design and construction teams to realise a building of this complexity is truly remarkable."

We've only seen it from the outside as I wasn't sure that Nell could cope with another shush and listen hour (ie, a tour), but it must be even more stunning inside. She loved slithering down the railed steps at the back of the SMPs' private offices though, and later on clambering up and down the wild flower garden/park linking back to front. And after we'd climbed nearby Arthur's Seat all of us enjoyed reading Scottish truisms and mottos carved into granite on the Royal Mile side as if the building was a book, to be judged by it's cover.

So I did, and this was my favourite (from Gerard Manley Hopkins):

"What would the world be once bereft of wet and wildness?

Let them be left.

Oh let them be left.

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Kilt complex

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola.

Everywhere we go we see the Baird tartan - not so much on sale but worn by the ladies trying to flog us a bit of Scottish heritage. In the pic of the Baird (ancient) tartan it is being modelled (for a gent) in a shop specialising in selling rental outfits. I couldn't find any secondhand kilts to fit the girls so had to surprise myself by ordering each of them a new kilt.

If they enjoy wearing their new kilts as much as the naff tourist tartan pom pom hats we picked up in the Royal Mile it will be money well spent, and is of course putting some money into a specialist local industry.

Climbing Arthur's Seat

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nell

Nell: "Climbing Arthur's Seat (251m) was very fun, even though it doesn't look like a seat [or an extinct volcano]. There's a ruin (St Anthony's Chapel) at the halfway point which Lola and I enjoyed. We saw some boys climbing. At the very top it was cold; Skiddaw is even bigger but Everest has snow on it. If you drive a car up there, which I know you can't do, it would be cheating. And there's no road you just wouldn't be able to. You'd have to go over the paths.

At the top we had smarties and shortbread.

I hope everyone climbs it, because it is really fun. You can bring any sweets you like, stay in a youth hostel, have beans on toast for dinner. What's better than that?"

Athens of the North

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

Athens of the North is how Edinburgh is fondly known. Without having Greek aspirations it is hard to be convinced, but from certain angles (eg, the descent of Arthur's Seat) you can see columns, pick out Grecian style temples and chat about Doric and Ionic columns until the Olympics arrives nearby in 2012 (admittedly to London, not Edinb).

However we are determined to get our girls to use a Greek viewfinder and so the picture will helpfully convince them - and you.

Off to New York

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

It's a bit of a cliche in Scotland - finding your family using an American twang - but we couldn't resist going to Gordons's bistro on Edinburgh's Royal Mile which bills itself as part New York deli and part Tuscan restaurant (good marketing) and then pretending to speak Nu Yak. This narrow, mirrored space with railway like seating - two to a side - seems to me as good as New York gets, so we were a little indulgent and pretended to go all American albeit with the help of Italian pizza and wine.

Aping the American state we managed to talk loudly, hold important opinions, chatter on the mobeys (mostly about which class the children were to be assigned when they go back to school in the new term) and generally be a tiny bit irritating restaurant customers. We did a good job...

As you can see from the pic we got there in The Tardis, conveniently parked outside the restaurant. As the kids only know about The Big Apple from a recent Dr Who episode which was set in 1930s depressed New York (the one with the pig men and daleks) it seemed entirely appropriate to make our trip this way.

The last polar bear

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola, Lola and Nell (pic reminds you that you should always let sleeping bears lie, ahh)

At last we've seen Mercedes - the last polar bear in Britain. Put another way she is the only polar bear in a UK zoo and at her Edinburgh hill top home acts as an ambassador for all the wild polar bears in the North Pole which are suffering because of climate change. We all feel very lucky to have seen a huge, white polar bear, understand more about the problems they are facing from habitat loss and climate change. And we did that without making a polluting return air trip to Hudson Bay, Canada where other polar bear lovers go. There was one dicey moment when Lola realised that her favourite animal (a polar bear) was being fed raw meat taken from her other favourite animal (horse). Luckily she's got used to the idea that not everyone is a vegetarian - or in many animals's cases can be a veggie.

Lola: "I loved her. Mercedes was a wild polar bear in Canada but she got caught three times eating garbage. She was going to be shot but the mercedes car company gave Edinburgh zoo enough money to get her to Scotland and build a cage for her. That's why she's called Mercedes."

Nell: "You should stop driving cars, and especially flying areoplanes, because if you could see how much pollution we are putting into the air you'd actually give up. Ice melts and the sea level gets higher. And the bottom of the world [the low lying coast land and low islands] might get flooded if we don't stop. That polar bear was very lucky because if she was in the North Pole she could have drowned finding her own food, because the polar bears can only swim a certain amount, but there is more sea now. They have to find food, and it's not easy. And if they have babies, and they're looking for food and they drown then the babies [cubs] will die too because they need their mum to give them food and teach them to swim. And their dad isn't very good with children. You would have thought a dad could look after a polar bear baby, but no. Their life is difference to ours. When a dad sexes with a mum polar bear the dad doesn't just stay to see the babies it goes away, not even hoping to get a glimpse of them!"