Thursday, 19 May 1955
What cold! Our breath is visible and in cloud formations even though the sun is shining outdoors. Ruth has the sniffles and a sore throat.
A gong resounds throughout announcing breakfast. Bongggggg! We both exclaim, “Terry - and - the - Pirates,” in the voice of a radio announcer from our past. And what breakfast it is! limp corn flakes that must have been set out the night before, cold fried bacon swimming in fat that smells like machine oil, and a lukewarm rubbery egg. If you don’t make it exactly at gong time, you miss out on the first course as Ruth did. In with all the fat are fried slices of bread. Tea is the only beverage. Yack! This is a tour bus day [proved to be our last of the trip].
We take Tour no. 26: Abbotsford, Melrose and Dryburgh Abbey, and Bemrsyde, home of Field Marshall Haig, of World War I fame, or infamy, depending upon how you feel about his role in the slaughter. In Haig’s home, the first stop, it was so cold it seemed unbearable to me. No one else seemed to mind. Ruth and I huddle around a small electric heater while the gang of visitors tramps upstairs to observe mostly World War I relics and memorabilia. Sir Walter Scott is buried at Dryburgh Abbey. It has oak beams and white walls. The gardens are beautiful. Border collies are all business sneaking up on sheep, crawling on their bellies and rushing to and fro, so very efficient and working a lot harder it would seem than the shepherds who whistle at them.
Melrose Abbey is larger but not as attractive with gardens and a greenhouse across the street. We didn’t go into Scott’s home at Abbotsford, preferring to sit in the bus with sun pouring in the windows creating a warm greenhouse climate.
At Dryburgh we had lunch in a nasty cold tea shop. It felt like sitting around at home in November with the heat off and all the doors open. No thanks. Dinner at the Brown Derby again. Mrs. W. shoos us up to bed at 10:30 reminding us that we had forgotten to shut off the lights last night. “The police will be after us for leaving the lights on!” she announces.
Two old men are also staying there, one with a horrible cough, the other crippled with arthritis. He grabs me and croaks, “There's too much heat in America! Central heating is no good for your health.” And just after we had been saying to each other how nice it would be for an old guy in his condition to get out of this horrible climate.
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