A family day out to Kirkudbright, Southwest Coast of Scotland

I've always loved Kirkudbright dear reader, I fell in love with it on family holidays to Dumfries and Galloway on the southwest coast of Scotland when I was growing up and then later it was the place Hubby and I would escape to knowing that just a couple of hours drive would take us to a place where the stress would evaporate and the trees would be green.

Yesterday, we took a family day out to the Southwest coast, a time to enjoy family time, rest and relax and a trip to our favourite place, somewhere we hadn't visited for several years.

A family portrait at last, I love Petunias smile, she's just got a perpetually happy face!

Who's a lovely husky?

I have no idea what they're doing, pretending to carry the meat home with the rest of the hunters I think!

The main street in Kirkudbright, yesterday when we arrived we found that they were having the Kirkudbright children's festival, there was a sign which stated "probably the best day out you'll ever have" well it was "National Mud Day" who knew they even had one of those.  I did have my nails done by a mature lady to help pay for a new wheelchair for someone and for the bargain price of £2, yes £2!

We paid a visit to Maclellans Castle owned by Historic Scotland which means we got in half price with our English Heritage membership, it's a fabulous little place, once owned by one of the Lords of Kirkudbright, I particularly liked the "Lairds Lug" you'll find these in castles all over the border counties where it was common for the border reivers to fight, the laird could make sure his visitors really weren't about to attack him or plotting to overthrow him for whoever would pay the most money, it'll have no doubt been those marauding border reivers the Charltons, though I think they were more likely to have been found doing much the same in the Northumbrian borders.

This was my family portrait, funny how it just never seems to work once I have to be in the photo!

Looby took this one of Abigail and I, that's about the best it's going to get, one day we'll get some updates with all of us in them, the problem though is that I'm completely photo phobic!

I love this image of Looby and Petunia, as you know by now I love the chance to do something different and it's easy when you have a dog who's name could easily be "bedtime" because that's all she ever does, I've never known a dog quite like Petunia, she just sleeps all the time, well apart from during the night when you actually want her too!

So that was it, our amazing family day out.... well that was sort of it, we had just left Kirkudbright and we could hear a weird noise coming from the engine and then we smelled burning and the engine died, I've never sprinted from a car quite so quickly thinking that it was going to explode in a Miami Vice type car explosion, it didn't explode and we were stranded in a lay by near the village of Tongland, luckily it was in front of 2 little cottages where 2 little old ladies lived with their dog Anoushka and their grumpy donkey called Toby who decided to nip me on the arm, I have a huge bruise.  A call to the AA was quickly placed and guess how long it took them to reach us?  4 hours, 4 hours in a lay by, thank goodness for those lovely ladies who made us coffee, fed us biscuits and let us use the loo.  When the AA did turn up we were told we had a broken starter motor, did they fix it?  No but they bumped it and told us we could drive home but not stop unless it was a petrol station on a hill, guess what we had to do, yes we had to find a petrol station on a hill, as I said to hubby, if it had of been me I would have refused to just chance it on the way home, it's hardly the full service when you've got kids and a dog to think about and you're hours away from home!  We did eventually make it home and hubby has gone to get a new starter motor this morning, the sun is shining and we're all having a day off to recover, lets hope it's the start of a new and fantastic week with slightly less in the way of broken down cars and nips from grumpy donkeys!