Visit to Tweedbank

 We took the Borders Railway, Britain's longest new domestic line in a hundred years when it opened in September 2015, the 35 miles from Waverley, the word's only railway station named after a novel, to Tweedbank where some of us headed with David Purdie to visit its author Scott's home at nearby Abbotsford. The rest enjoyed lunch at Herge's on the Loch, a light and airy restaurant named after the Belgian cartoonist with a fine view of swans and ducks. An open-top bus failed to stop for us, but some took the scheduled service to Melrose, where we visited Priorwood Garden and the Abbey and one of us climbed the stair, similar to the one up the Scott Monument, to take in the view from the roof.

Priorwood Garden Abbey