Our original plan had been to spend four nights at the Moffat campsite, largely to spend a weekend with Francine’s niece and husband. Then she-who-must-be-obeyed decided that, if we could, we should stay for an extra day, basically to giver us a day off without an agenda. The process caused some difficulty since the campsite had been using a new booking system for only a few days. Eventually, though, we got our stay extended.
Then we got a shock. Our initial booking for four nights cost a shade under £120. The payment the Camping and Caravan Club took for our extra night was a whopping £47. I assumed that they had forgotten the Age Concession Rate [60+ get a discount] but no – this was differential pricing in action ‘cos we’d booked it close to the date. That’s even worse – the £47 included the ACR so the full price would have been well over £50.
Frankly that’s outrageous – someone’s having a laugh. We have never paid anywhere close to prices like that in either France or Spain where we’d think of €30 as being on the high side. The UK has completely lost it but, then, we knew that anyway.
So, in trying to enjoy our extra extortionately expensive extra day in Moffat, we took a circuitous route into town for Francine to sate her craving for a Scotch Pie. [Don’t ask.] Our route into town took us through a park with a boating lake that seemed largely to be lacking water, then up a delightful “burn” known as Annan Water. I soon regretted not taking my camera along – I wasn’t expecting to see much but this rock-strewn burn looked as if it might be prime Dipper territory.
At first we saw little but a Robin catching flies over the water. Further up, though, as the numbers of boulders in the water increased, we did, indeed, see Dippers. We’ve seen them only once before, I think; they are delightful little birds that frenetically bob up and down searching in the shallower water for invertebrates to feed on. This encounter was especially good ‘cos these Dippers were feeding fledged chicks who followed them around expectantly. Now I was really ruing my lack of camera. Francine did what she could with her phone camera. [At least it’s an iPhone.] She even took some video.
We finally ended up in town to search for Francine’s Scotch Pie. Getting a hot one proved difficult. The local baker did have a hot cabinet and clearly had had some pies but at first glance it was now woefully ill-supplied. Still short on the Scotch Pie front, we returned a few minutes later to find the cabinet replenished. Sadly it had not been replenished with hot pies but cold pies needing to be heated up. We made the mistake of buying two, even though I could see what was coming; Francine’s pie was, at least, tepid but mine was cold. You do not want to eat a cold Scotch Pie. Actually, I’m not sure that I ever want to eat any kind of Scotch Pie again.
We repaired to a hotel for a drink to wash down the pies. I’ve tried two different Scottish real ales since I’ve been here and I wouldn’t give you thank you for either one of them. Yesterday I switched to Staropramen, today I chose Cruzcampo. Better.
We returned to Frodo and it just had to be done. At first I hadn’t felt like returning but the Dippers were calling. I broke out my camera and wandered back to Annan Water to see if I could catch the Dippers on pixels. They are the most endearing birds that live up to their name, constantly bobbing up and down as they sit on a rock looking for underwater prey items. I managed to catch and adult, a chick, an adult surfacing with prey in its beak, and finally an adult passing food to one of the chicks. The adults appeared to have divided their workload, with the male looking after one chick while the female tended to the other chick. It had been well worth the return trip to the burn.
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