Thoroughly Enjoying Thornhill

We are settled into our Scotland house sit after a great transition with our host couple. We are now enjoying their lovely home in the beautiful Scottish countryside and caring for the very lovable border terrier, Bruce, as well as keeping the bird feeders, etc. filled in the garden. We are treated daily to a lovely array of birds and have even glimpsed a red squirrel or two. At night we put out food for a hedge hog! It’s awesome.

Bruce is a good walker, so we have had him out for walks both within Thornhill as well as up around the lochs closer to Locherbie. We have visited the memorial there to the victims of the plane crash and have walked the Robert Burns trail around Dumfries, the closest town to Thornhill and where Robert Burns lived for the last years of his life. Yesterday, we did a 90 minute hike to the Drumlanrig castle with quite the scramble thru the brambles at the end (truly –I pulled thorns out of my hair when we got back!) due to a bridge being out across the creek. Once we got to the castle, however, we learned (not being smart enough to check these things ahead of time) that the castle would only be open to the public during the upcoming weekend. So, we scrambled and then hiked our way back — but not before snapping a couple of photos of the gorgeous place.