The Borders
Friday 7th – Sunday 9th June
Clovenfords Hotel, Galashiels 
The Crown Hotel, Carlisle
Day 1 – Clovenfords
Slightly later than planned but we were on our way by 10.45am, a little detour right at the start as Vikki announced we were going the wrong way…we weren’t. (There may be a theme establishing itself there…) Eta started at 5.30pm although not for long.
To say it was a long and tedious journey is an understatement. Heavy traffic and roadworks meant it was nearly 200 miles before we actually made it past 60mph, average speed was about 20mph (well maybe not quite but given the number of times we weren’t moving at all it can’t be far off!)
The trip felt long as the rain didn’t let up at all, it was constant the entire trip meaning the roof was up the entire time (UP…not down…UP). To try and pass the time we listened to podcasts, music, comedy, radio and played a quiz app. Heard an interesting podcast about how often people think about sex, food and sleep…unsurprising the results showed men think about all of them more often than women!
It took over 7 hours to do the first 230ish miles and we finally arrived (still speaking!) at 8.50pm, a mere 10hrs 5mins after leaving home! We dropped off our bags and headed to Suz and Andrew’s where Chinese, wine, beer, chocolates and chat was then the order of the evening. Vikki and Suz talked and Andrew and Steve managed to squeeze in the odd word!
By the time we got back to the pub it was dark and locked up, just as well we had a key. Nice hotel room but the sloping floor in the bathroom was a bit disorientating and the shower definitely wasn’t made for tall people!
Day 2 – Carlisle
Yummy breakfast on Saturday morning and when in Scotland and all that so Steve had haggis with his bacon and egg , before checking out and heading off to Suz & Andrew’s for our next adventure.
We headed off on convoy to Carlisle for the escape room. The convoy didn’t last long but Andrew did a pretty good job keeping up and the rain eased off enough that we got the roof down for a wee bit.
The escape room was fun, we made it out with over 16minutes to spare so weren’t far off the room record. We discovered that Suzanne is no where near as competitive as Andrew, Steve and Vikki, Vikki and and Andrew aren’t too efficient at lining up combination locks and that Steve is efficient at picking combination locks!
After escaping we headed for the hotel, we may have taken a small detour to get to there due to the distraction of ‘twanging’ but on the plus side we found someone, other than Vikki, who leaves their keys in their front door – good deed of the day done!
Great hotel, great room and a lovely surprise of fizz and strawberries waiting for us. We had lunch in the pub which was nice apart from the teeny sandwich and the most unimaginative salad ever.
After enjoying some fizz and strawberries in the room we spent a couple of leisurely hours in the pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room which was great apart from when Vikki smacked Steve in the face…and that was before Steve announced Vikki is full of hot air and he is dense!
A jacuzzi bath in the room meant Vikki wallowed in there finishing the fizz before dinner (it would have been rude not to use it) while Steve relaxed. It was Gin and Fizz night at the hotel so we got a complimentary gin – Steve and Andrew had a delicious Chinese spiced gin and Vikki got a wee in a glass…marketed as Quince gin, definitely not one to be repeated!
After a long couple of days we enjoyed our meal, a drink at the bar and then headed off for an early night.
Day 3 – Home time
Nice lay in, yummy breakfast and we headed off back home Sunday morning. A much more pleasant trip than the way up, weather dried up so we got the roof down for most of it (although there were a couple of very soggy moments) and made it home in about 7hours including a 45min lunch stop.
Fantastic weekend with great company, the start of an annual tradition.
Oh and now we know toothbrushes are multi purpose, some coffee machines don’t auto stop the water flow, despite blue skies you can get very heavy isolated rain showers on the motorway and that heated seats do a great job of drying out rain sodden clothes!
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