1st October
A pinch and a punch for the first of the month!
We slept in this morning! It was a bit of a shock when my alarm went off at 7 am and we were all still asleep in bed! It didn't take us long however to get up and get moving. Packing my suitcase on the other hand was a bit of a battle to fit everything in!
Eventually we got sorted and finished playing Tetris to fit all the suitcases, food and Nanny into the back seat and headed off on our way. Bye Edinburgh!
It was the first miserable day we had had, drizzling with rain just enough to be annoying and make Granny Nanny's hair frizz, but we headed down the A7 tourist route all the same. The freezing temperatures (it was between 6 and 12 degrees, that's freezing to us!) made the mist roll in over the hills, obscuring half the hill or building so it looked like things were floating in the clouds.
Our first stop was Galashiels. However because it was a Sunday, a lot of the little shops and the general town was closed. So we continued onto Langholm, where we encountered the same problem. Oh well, we had to hit a Sunday somewhere! We piled back into the car and continued onto Gretna Green and Gretna, crossing the English and Scottish border multiple times along the way.
Gretna Green is possibly the most romantic place in Scotland, if not in the UK. This small Scottish village has become synonymous with romance and runaway lovers. In 1754 a new law, Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, was brought into force in England. This law required young people to be over 21 years of age if they wished to marry without their parents’ or guardian’s consent. The marriage was required to be a public ceremony in the couple’s parish, with an official of the Church presiding. The new law was rigorously enforced and carried a sentence of 14 years transportation for any clergyman found breaking it.
The Scots however did not change the law and continued with their centuries-old marriage customs. The law in Scotland allowed anyone over the age of 15 to enter into marriage provided they were not closely related to each other and were not in a relationship with anyone else. This marriage contract could be made wherever the couple liked, in private or in public, in the presence of others or no-one at all.
A marriage in the Scottish tradition could take place anywhere on Scottish soil. Being so close to the English border, Gretna was popular with English couples wanting to marry but when in the 1770s a toll road was built running through the village making it even more accessible from south of the border, it soon became renowned as the destination for eloping couples. Forbidden romance and runaway marriages were popularised in the fiction of the time, for example in the novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen.
English couples usually preferred to keep some English marriage traditions and so looked for someone in authority to oversee the ceremony. The most senior and respected craftsman in the countryside was the village blacksmith, and so the Blacksmith’s Forge at Gretna Green became a favourite place for weddings. The tradition of the blacksmith sealing the marriage by striking his anvil led to the Gretna blacksmiths becoming known as ‘anvil priests’. Indeed the blacksmith and his anvil are now symbols of Gretna Green weddings. Gretna Green’s famous Blacksmiths Shop, the Old Smithy where lovers have come to marry since 1754, is still in the village and still a wedding venue.
From Gretna, we continued down through Carlisle and Penrith, only getting lost a few times, and they were all because of round-a-bouts with between 5 and 7 exits!!
Eventually we made it to Eamont Bridge, the town we are staying in. We found our cottage and after a few hick-ups managed to get inside and settle in. Mum and I walked the length of the town after having something to eat, it only took us about 5 minutes or 200 metres!
I think it was pretty impressive, how much of Scotland we managed to see in just 6 days! Boy, did we drive some miles!
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| Eamont Bridge |
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