Another sunny day! I chatted to an older Scottish gentlemen today who remarked on the sunny weather and told me, “Enjoy it while you can. This will probably be our summer.” So I did! Enjoy it, that is.

This morning, Philip and I walked to a nearby discount shop to get him a couple of summer things to wear because he didn’t bring any with him, and it has been too warm these last two days for the ehavy winter clothes he brought..

Mid-morning Philip, Rosie and I set off. To Meet the Ancestors. Philip’s hobby is family tree – both his side and mine. In fact, he knows mine far better than I do. I get them all muddled in my head. The names go spinning round in my head, especially when they keep repeating their Christian names. And then it all comes out jumbled to me. So it’s not quite “Meet the Ancestors. Rather, it is Meet the Places that the Ancestors come from – in Scotland and England.”

First stop was looking for Lithgow (my mother’s side) ancestor links. We drove to the nearby village of Monktonhall. It’s really an outlying village of Edinburgh now, just separated by a bit of countryside. We don’t have any exact addresses of the Ancestors. Just village names. So we drove around little Monktonhall. Mostly semi-detached bungalows. But we did find this row of very old stone cottages called “Farm Cottages.” My Ancestor Alexander Lithgow was a gardenerer at Monktonhall in the early 1700s. So it’s within the realms of possibility that perhaps he possibly walked past these cottages when he lived here in this village. Clutching at straws I know! It’s a possibility, if not exactly a probability.

Next stop was the slightly larger village of Inveresk, very close by. This village as well as the usual cottages and bungalows has a few old, very grand looking houses.  

We stopped at this interesting old house, called Inveresk Garden Lodge because it had an Open Garden. The house was built in the 1680s and was a Jacobite stronghold of its times. (Jacobites had a particular political stance of the times. Lots of wars, intrigues and double-dealing done by all sides of the conflict.) 

The garden wasn’t big, but beautifully done. Philip stopped and talked for a long time with a gardener there. My ancestor, John Lithgow, born in 1748 lived in Inveresk and worked in a nursery, and he later moved to Dorset in England where he seems to ahve started his own nursery. The gardener told Philip that “nurseries” in those days meant that you sold produce from the nearby farms which were very productive. Philip also noticed while talking to the gardener that with the Scottish accent, “Lithgow” comes out sounding like “Lethgow”.

We looked at graves in the nearby church of St Michaels, but couldn’t find any old enough. The really old gravestones seemed to have crumbled and disintegrated. But I found this interesting tombstone. To our eyes it looks macbre. A cherub with a skull, and bones down the side. It was to remind passersby of their mortality. I would have thought with the death rate of those times, that they wouldn’t have needed a lot of reminding!

Then it was time for a late lunch. So we drove a little bit further south to the Pentland Hills which are only 30 minutes south of Edinburgh. Had a wonderful lunch at the old stone Flotterstone Inn. (I love the names of some of the places here!) We sat outside in the back garden under a shady tree with a little burn (stream) running on the other side of the fence to eat. I had delicious pheasant.

Flotterstone is right on the edge of the Pentland Hills, with the Pentland Way walks running through it, over the tops of the hills. So Philip, Rosie and I set off on a short walk outside the Inn, through some woodlands and then farmlands. Until we came to a barred fence saying, “Danger. Do Not Enter”. Bit disappointing, so we had to turn back.

Philip decided to go back to the Inn. He has had a painful back since his long flight here. And Rosie and I took another pathway. (There’s always another pathway if you go looking for it!)

Rosie and I climbed up and up to the top of Turnabout Hill. It had been a steep climb, and when I stopped to catch my breath, I could hear the blood thumping in my ears. Another one of those walks when I wonder about whether it’s going to be worth it to reach the summit. It always helps to remind myself that, Yes it will be worth to reach the top. It always is.

We sat down on the green grass under a thick shady tree and looked out at the landscape spread out far below us. Patchwork fields of green and corn-yellow stitched together by narrow dark green bands of trees. From far away we could hear the lowing of cattle and the distant bleating of sheep. (Shaun the sheep had lots of friends here too!) The hills here are rounded and smooth, and not quite as high. But steep enough to climb for all that!

Rosie decided she’d done enough hill climbing for the day, so she decided to go back to wait at the Inn too. But I wanted to see if I could climb the next two hills. I knew I didn’t have enough time to do more than that. And I made it.  All the way to the top of Carnethy Hill. It’s 573 metres high, if you care or are interested!

And I took my first selfie. (A photo of yourself.) But I was proud of my achievement. It was an exhilerating walk and I enjoyed being able to look all around in every direction from the top of the Hill. More Pentland hills rolling on in one direction. The sea in the far distance. And the farmlands and villages and towns down below.  You can see some of the landscape behind my shoulder.  You can also see that I didn’t have my glasses on when I took this photo!!

I enjoyed the walk back down again too. Much easier and quicker and it always gives you another perspective because you’re seeing the landscape from another angle. I saw some sheep pens on 45 degree hill slopes. Wonder who rounds the sheep up to put them in? I’ve noticed too, that they don’t dock the sheeps’ or lambs’ tails here. The other wonderful thing about walking in Britain is that you don’t have flies buzzing around your face and pestering you as you walk along. Even when you walk through farmlands, and you can see swarms of flies around the cattle or sheep, they never come near you! I love that!