Five Countries Four Marlboroughs: Biggar, our stay at the Castle and the wee country roads

I woke up with a BANG or was it a THUD– OH NO, did I really have the WORST hangover I’d had all year? Oh yes I did, and we had to be on the move! I don’t usually get hangovers on holidays but my goodness, the day ahead was going to be soooo rough. Bless Terry, he packed up everything, brought me beroccas, coffee, panadol – anything he could think of to enable me to get up. Finally, with time running out, I crawled slowly out of bed.

Somehow, I successfully navigated us out of Edinburgh and we were on the road again. The original plan was to drive down the coast to Alnwick Castle – the castle where Harry Potter was made. ‘Boys, do you mind if we take the quicker road today and miss the castle?’ I asked in hope, fingers firmly crossed. They didn’t mind at all – they said they were all Harry Pottered out from London – so we took the quicker route to Kirkby Stephen where that night we would sleep in a CASTLE!

Now that we were driving down through Scotland, I would have the chance to call into Biggar, the town my great, great (maybe one more great) grandmother came from. This side of the family, the Paterson’s, were free settlers to Australia. We walked down the main street and I said to Terry that I’d had the feeling I’d been there before. ‘Really?’ he asked. We walked a bit further and I said the same thing again. Then through my foggy hangover I remembered that I’d google earthed the street a few months before we’d left. No wonder it looked familiar!

We stopped and had lunch at a café and I had a bowl of tasty potato and leek soup – it was a clear soup and just what I needed to do away with my hangover. Finally i could begin to enjoy the drive. We took a walk through the cemetery to see if there were any graves of the Patersons. There was only one cemetery in town, surely we would find the Paterson name. Well, sure enough the very first headstones we saw were that of the Patersons – we couldn’t believe it. The name in particular I was looking for was Agnes Paterson – we found around 7 names in total and one headstone that had fallen over but the family name Paterson was visible on the top of the headstone – could this have been Agnes? I guess I’ll never know.

Onwards we drove and then we arrived at the CASTLE – Augill Castle to be exact located a short drive from Kirkby Stephen. Well, after my big night I certainly didn’t look like a princess but we rocked up for our two night stay.

The castle is out of this world – a little rustic, a bit quirky and a lot of charm! Grand, but intimate. We had two rooms and each had their own special touches. The castle obviously has a lot of history - Queen Victoria’s surgeon, Dr Abercrombie lived in the castle at one point and it is believed that Queen Victoria stayed in the castle!

Once we had explored the castle, we decided to head to the local pub for dinner. The Black Swan was rated as number 1 in the area on Tripadvisor and I was keen to check it out. Generally my app, maps.me sends me in the right direction. This time, it decided to send us to the pub via all the smallest of country roads. It is hard to explain to someone how narrow a road can be! We drove along the narrowest roads and bridges I have ever seen – I don’t know what we would have done if another car had come along, one of us would have had to reverse a mile. After a while, we didn't care where we ate - we just wanted to find somewhere open to eat. I was getting hangry. Restaurants in small town after small town were all closed. We finally made it to the pub, and after the huge night we’d had the night before, Terry and I opted for lemonade. We found out later all the inns and restaurants don't open til 6 o'clock - no wonder they were all 'closed'

We arrived back at the castle just on dark and I had the best sleep I’d ever had – or maybe I just passed out from exhaustion!