Today got off to a good start, when this book arrived in the post, sent to me by Gayle - I won it in her recent giveaway. There's lots of interesting stuff in it and I'm looking forward to reading it in detail.
We headed out for the day, as we were to be without electricity (again!). We headed up to Galashiels for a spot of retail therapy - Malcolm had vouchers for money off wine in Tesco and I had a voucher for a discount at one of my favourite clothes shops, so it was a successful morning!
On the way back down the road, we turned off in Selkirk, along to Philiphaugh, to have lunch in the Waterwheel Cafe.
I remembered to take a photo of my lunch before I ate it - a delicious coronation chicken baguette with salad (and crisps!)
The cafe is part of the Philiphaugh Estate - a traditional Victorian Estate, now managed with the emphasis on sustainabilty. As it was such a lovley day, we went for a walk round part of the estate. Our first stop was at the waterwheel. Around the time of the First World War, the waterwheel supplied power to a threshing barn.
Unfortunately the wheel is in shadow, but you can see from the water at the bottom that it was turning. Our next stop was at the cauld (weir), which was built to channel water to power the mills in Selkirk. This is the Ettrick Water, which is a tributary of the River Tweed. When the cauld was built, it would have prevented the Atlantic salmon swimming upstream to spawn, so a fish ladder was built in the middle. It is a spectacular sight when the salmon are leaping up the ladder. Because the sun was shining on the water, I could only get a photo of the edge of the cauld, but it gives you an idea of the force of the water flowing over it.
There is a side channel from the main river, which runs down to power the waterwheel. The water flows under a small bridge, which has sluice gates, which in the past would have been used to control the flow of water.
But the gates haven't been used for a while - we spotted this little tree growing out of the machinery!
It was very tranquil, with the ewes and lambs lazing in the spring sun.
But on the 13th of September in 1645, things were very different. There was a fierce and bloody battle between the armies of the Covenanters (Scottish Presbyterians) and the Royalists. The Covenanters carried the day, with many of the defeated army being put to the sword and prisoners taken to nearby Newark Castle and shot.
We made one more stop on the way home - come back tomorrow and I'll tell you about it!