UK trip Day 5 - Borthwick Castle, Edinburgh (4 Jul)

Ok, am back in Singapore so shall continue with "briefs" on my trip, before I forget about them.

As mentioned in my last post, it's my castle stay on Day 5. With our luggage, V & I took a walk to Waterloo Place to take the X95 bus. Good thing the weather wasn't too bad coz it was about a 20 min walk! On arriving at Middleton Town, the said drop-off point, we found we had to walk about 1 mile! Talk about a 10 min walk (by hotel staff). Haha...but we managed with a slow walk, stopping here & there to take in the scenery.

Anyway, on reaching, the place seemed rather cozy. It was a relatively small castle, not many rooms and the doors were rather low (had to stoop down to get through them). You'll see when I upload my photos. Again, it was natural air-conditioning.

We soon discovered there wasn't much to do around here. No network (mobile), no internet, no TV in the room. There was supposed to be a TV room somewhere, but we didn't venture there. The room was super quiet, till our ears rang, so we went for a walk (haha...there goes our hopes of horse riding & the like coz the office closed before we were ready to move out).

A short walk round the surroundings gave the feeling of peace & quiet, with horses grazing and the rolling meadows...it was poetic to a sense. Almost a deafening silience. You find oneself in your own personal space, yet you know there are people around. Had an inspiration to draft down a short poem. A bit raw, but well...(made some slight edits upon this posting)

Meadows roll where horses graze

Solitude in coalition space

Where nature sounds its private call

None seen yet exists

excluded in my solitude space

Probably if I had an instrument in hand I would have written a song. Ha!

Anyway, not wanting to venture too far before dinner, we went back to our room and played music from our mobile to break the silence and rest (after the long walks today). We got changed for pre-dinner cocktail (had a glass of rosé) thereafter and had a short guided tour round the premises and on its history. It's interesting how they defended the castle with only 1 entrance/exit which was a low doorway, where only 1 person could enter at a time and needed to stoop, with head coming in first. So guards on the side of the doors just needed to simply chop off the intruder's head & wait for their next victim. Haha...although I don't believe they had to actually use this tactic before. The guide showed us the trapdoor and also the chapel and state rooms. A part of the castle wall was damaged too when it was attacked by Oliver Cromwell.

Dinner was nice & hot, served in fine dining style in The Great Hall (it seems dining rooms are called "great halls" in general in old establishments). We were pretty full by the time dessert came. Both V & I were pretty amazed at the next table coz they practically cleaned everything off their plates!

With nothing else left to do, we retired for the night. We concluded that maybe we should stay at a bigger castle next time.