Getting to Berwick Upon Tweed

It was a long, long day. I hopped on the plane in Iowa at 4:15. Anne and Anna were scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 6:05, but they were delayed and did not arrive until 6:55. John Robert arrived on schedule, at 7:15. We munched on our respective "meals on the go" until they put us on the plane for an 8:30 departure. The flight was long. The food was unmemorable. The company was good, but otherwise the airplane ride was uneventful -- which is not too bad as airplane rides go. It is easy to imagine worse.

We arrived in Glasgow, picked up the baggage and the van in which we are traveling, had a cup of coffee, got some money and hit the road. Glasgow to Berwick Upon Tweed, at 100 miles, was the next to longest drive of the trip. We will drive from Beverley to London in a couple of weeks, which is the longest drive. The drive involved getting used to driving on the left hand side of the road, the brakes, and the manual gear shift, but was pleasant. It sprinkled a bit. It was cloudy from time to time. But it was a nice drive through the countryside.

In Berwick we found our bed and breakfast easily and got moved into our rooms. By that time it was mid-afternoon so we walked down the street to have tea. The scones were undistinguished, but the tea was just fine.

Berwick is a small, old town with Boynton "memories." Robert [of the Boyntons of Boynton] was constable of the castle in 1378 and lost both the castle and his head to a band of Scots. Henry [of the Boynton triangle Boyntons] joined an insurrection against Henry IV in 1405 and lost the war, his lands and his head. In the space of 30 years two Boyntons suffered ignoble defeat -- at a very high cost.

Robert had been constable of the castle and Henry, along with lots of co-conspirators, tried to escape the wrath of Henry IV by hiding in the castle. So, we wanted to see the castle.

Everything we had read about the castle said it is in ruins -- since the building of the railway station in the 19th century. I assumed that meant there would be nothing much left. That is not true, however. There is a substantial ruins here -- though they make it very difficult to get to. At the bottom of the hill there is a tower on the bank of the Tweed river. There is a wall from the tower up to the castle. That tower is on the edge of town, and we walked over to it. We clambered around on what is left of the tower and climbed up the wall toward the castle. We thought we had seen all there is to see, which turned out to be incorrect. But I have lots of pictures of Boyntons on the rocks.

There was one more errand for the afternoon -- roibosch tea. It was at the Green Shop, which is not one of the major centers of activity in Berwick. But we got directions and walked over. The woman who helped us asked what we wanted. I said we had come from the U.S. to buy roibosch tea, which is unavailable in the U.S. She had it. She could not quite figure out how true or false to interpret my claim to have come from the U.S. to buy tea. We assured her that there were one or two other items on our itinerary. She was equally astounded that the Green Shop as purveyors of roibosch tea had been found on the internet. Apparently, we were their first "internet customers."

Evening was coming fast, and that meant finding a place for dinner. We had passed many on our walks. They all looked uninviting to our eyes. So, naturally, we settled on what is "probably northern England's best Indian restaurant." That, at least, is their claim. I had tandoori chicken. Anna had peanut butter on an Indian bread. John Robert had rice. And Anne had prawns and a side dish of potatoes and greens. If this is the best northern England has to offer we may avoid Indian from now on. But it was not bad. We all imagine the steak pies and hamburgers would have been worse.

Back to the bed and breakfast and Anna off to slumber. We talked for a while, looked at the pictures we had purchased, and concluded there was more castle than we had seen. So, at 9:00, John Robert and I headed off to the train station to scout out the castle at the top of the hill. It is there. It was not clear how you would get over the railroad tracks to it, but we are going to try.

Then it was off to bed at 10:00 p.m. That is 4:00 p.m. in Iowa. Just 24 hours after getting on the airplane at the Cedar Rapids airport. I had had at least 2 hours of sleep in the 24 since leaving Iowa. The bed felt good.

Berwick is a tourist town/attraction. There are many beds and breakfasts. But it does not look much like an American tourist town. It is old buildings -- starting with the castle. The most recent seem to be the 1950s. There is, for example, a Woolworths on main street. There is very little of the glitz associated with tourists in the U.S. So that makes it interesting.