Sabbatical Diary – Day 24

Not a great photo, but that’s the Isle of May, taken about two minutes after leaving my B&B this morning. Appropriate, I thought, for today.

Sunny all day today and lovely views of the coast as I made my way South. Quite a lot of built up areas, and lots of 20mph speed limits, with traffic problems as well, so quite slow going. Some lovely little villages and harbours along the way too.

North and South Queensferry both quite charming. They stand on opposite sides of the Firth of Forth and were named for Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm III of Scotland, who (according to tradition) established a ferry crossing there in the 11th Century. They now sit more or less under the Forth and Queensferry bridges. (Some great photos of North Queensferry and the bridges on the North Queensferry Wikipedia site.)

Got to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) at about 5.10 and managed to get to Evening Prayer at St Mary’s for 5.30. Looking forward to a good day here tomorrow and Communion before I leave on Sunday.

So, back in England now after going round the whole of Scotland (apart from my ‘short cut’ on wash-out Wednesday). No real problems at the border crossing, although all the questions about Whiskey and Haggis seemed unnecessary.

A little over 2,500 coastal miles so far from Chester, up the West Coast of England and around Scotland (not including my 270 mile side trip to Glasgow!). A little over 2,000 miles to go around the rest of England and across to Chepstow. Then Wales.

And finally, I had a good view of Dunrobin Castle whilst coming down the A9 towards Inverness a few days back. It struck me that the village there would be a good place for priests to retire to!!

God bless,

Mike