Busy Doing Nothing

The campsite at New England Bay is around three hours from home and I have done the drive so many, many times I could almost get there on autopilot. However, I have always been tired out on arrival with the afternoon of my first day spent sitting around, wandering to the beach and resting up. Travelling in Blue Bus I found things were rather different.

Despite (technically) being a commercial vehicle, BB drives like an extremely comfortable large car and it helps that she's an Auto. I toddled up the motorway and then along the so familiar A75 thinking "I'll stop at the usual layby" but when I got there I did not need to, so I carried on. And carried on. And carried on and it wasn't until two hours into the journey my back said "can I have a bit of a leg stretch please". I was only 5 minutes away from somewhere rather special:



Any holiday which commences with an early lunch at Cairnholy is going to be a good one, particularly when I had the sacred loveliness to myself:



I arrived at the campsite a few minutes after the earliest check-in time. When the Manager pointed out that a particular pitch was available I nearly raced out of the office and gave few rodents a run for their money up a drainpipe. Elevated position, thick gorse on three sides, and a half-empty site which meant no-one pitched in front of me. Absolute ruddy bliss - I've always eyed up this spot but never been able to get on because it was given over to a caravan on a seasonal pitch.



Settle in, have a second lunch, have a wander to the beach. Then find out it's barely 3.00pm and unusually I have bags of energy. So I took Blue Bus to show her where the wonderful "2,000 Acres of Sky" was filmed and spent a lovely afternoon clambering over the rocks refusing to consider that firtling around a few metres from a drop into the sea, on my own, when no-one knew where I was, wasn't something which would have been sanctioned by the Should. You. Be. Doing. That? Police.

But they were not here and I was, so sod 'em 🤣 and I had a super time.



After a really good sleep, I was in Stranraer by 10.00 the next morning, and at Castle Kennedy a short while later. The gardens were FABULOUS, but they always are at this time of year. They deserve a picture-heavy post of their own.



After breakfast on my third day I contemplated all the lovely places nearby which I could revisit. And I decided that I could not be {beep'd} to go to any of them. Not because I felt bad but because I felt absolutely brilliant - relaxed, rested, and under no obligation to do anything which I did not really want to. The sun was shining, the campsite was completely silent and there was no need to go anywhere else.

Gosh, that did me good. An entire day sitting outside reading or browsing around on my iPad (for a remote location the phone signal is ridiculously good). I wandered to the beach, watched gannets diving for food, drank endless mugs of tea, said hello to random dogs who were having a wonderful time, and just breathed out, very aware of how magical it all was.



Final day - slow start, slow bimble home stopping off at a couple of garden centres just to have a look, just because I was passing. Arrived back at Bag End feeling ridiculously "Zen" wondering if I had really been away for only four days because something Wibbly Wobbly Time-y Wimey had happened to make it feel like a two-week break.

Oh Goddess how I loved David Tennant as The Doctor.
They should never have let him go.
They should bring him back.

Oh, ssshhh, they ARE bringing him back - didn't you know?

Spoilers, Sweetie!