walking – ricketyrambler

Inveresk Lodge Garden and Aberlady

June 7, 2025ricketyrambler3 Comments

Two lovely Scottish names to pick apart today and two beautiful places to talk about. We visited the National Trust for Scotland’s Inveresk Lodge Garden which is near Musselburgh a couple of weeks ago before popping along the coast past some wonderfully named places – Prestonpans, Cockenzie and Longniddry to the lovely little town of Aberlady – one of my favourite places in East Lothian.

Inveresk:

Inver… meaning the mouth of a river and Esk being the name of the river – so Inveresk. Esk is the name of several rivers in England and Scotland and is probably from the Brythonic (Celtic) word – meaning “water”.

Aberlady:

Aber…..also meaning the mouth of a river or where the waters meet – also probably Brythonic – and “lady” probably was an earlier name for the West Peffer Burn which is the stream which flows into the Firth of Forth at this point. Interestingly “Peffer” also comes from the same language and means ‘radiant’ or ‘beautiful’.

So now you know – two places at the mouth of streams or rivers where they flow into the Firth of Forth.

Inveresk is a pretty historic village which seems to be on its way to becoming a suburb of Musselburgh judging by the amount of house building going on on its outskirts. We may go back for a walk around the old village one day but this time we headed straight into the Lodge Gardens which are split into two areas – the greenhouses and lawned area with their pretty borders, and the wilder hillside woods, meadows and ponds. The greenhouse was notable for its astonishing wall of geranium – I’ve never seen a geranium climbing like this one before:

We wandered through the woods and meadows and around the ponds which contained millions of tadpoles, and then back up to the more formal lawned area.

This beautiful flag iris was in the border, we have some in flower right now in our pond at home. I would nip out and grab a photo but some much needed torrential rain is happening and I’m not inclined to get that wet!

Talking about Irises and just digressing for a minute – today we went to Berwick-Upon-Tweed and saw an exhibition of work by Cedric Morris, a British artist and plantsman. He became obsessed with irises and bred bearded irises from seed – and then of course, he painted them. I’m not so good at the art appreciation stuff – but I quite liked his flower paintings – here’s a little bit of one taken from a card (May Flowering Irises – 1935).

Anyway – onward to Aberlady!

We were really ready for lunch when we got to the outskirts of Aberlady and we had been well-prepared and, checking online found a lovely farmshop and cafe…..except when we got there….no cafe!! This was disappointing to say the least because we knew that there were very few places to get lunch in Aberlady, however we had a wander through the main street and ended up in a lovely hotel garden with delicious scones and tea so all was not lost (though lunch would have been nice).

In the middle ages Aberlady was a port serving the old county town of Haddington, but it actually dates back much earlier than that to around the 7th century when it had a role is supporting pilgrims travelling between Iona to the North and Lindisfarne to the south.

After our scones we walked on along the road to the parish church with its well-tended grounds and walked through to admire the estuary from viewpoint.

The view from the churchyard to the Firth of Forth across the golf course – this part of East Lothian is full of golf courses!

The very well looked after Parish Church of Aberlady

Right next to the churchyard is Coffin Lane (!) and we walked through here to walk back to the main road along the coast road.

The view looking inland – the hill in the background is Berwick Law, a very steep hill that I have climbed once in the distant past. Maybe its time to try it again!

We follow the road out of town towards the Scottish Ornithological Centre at Waterston House passing this set of steps right in the middle of the pavement on the way – I know what they are but do you have any ideas what they are for? Comment below with your answer……

Blue skies had appeared by the time we arrived at the bird centre – this is a view of the pond taken from inside the viewing room.

The only bird we saw though was a moorhen:

I love how his movement disturbs the reflection of the bullrushes!

Back on the road through town we stop to admire the Memorial Garden which has a reconstruction of an ancient Anglo Saxon cross, a fragment of which was found in a garden wall adjacent to the kirkyard. The original would have been around 5 metres tall and carved with vine scrolls and seabirds.

That’s it! Time to go home.

Thanks for reading and especially thanks to people who have been taking the trouble to comment on these posts, especially as it seems that you have had to sign up to WordPress to do this. I’ve now disabled this setting – I hope! I’m still getting to grips with this new version of WordPress so let me know…..and don’t forget to let me know what you think those steps are for.

Howick Hall Gardens and Coast Path

May 10, 2025ricketyrambler1 Comment

From Howick Hall Gardens you can walk to the coast and along the English Coast Path before turning inland and back to the gardens. Including walking around the gardens we did around 6 miles on a beautiful day in late April.

Howick Hall is near the Northumberland coast not far from Alnwick. [ https://howickhallgardens.com/ ] The house, built in 1782, is the birthplace of Earl Grey Tea! The tea was blended by a Chinese mandarin for the 2nd Earl Grey from the spring water at Howick using Bergamot and was so popular that Twinings marketed it for sale all over the world (apparently the Greys were not so business minded and didn’t register the trademark before Twinings got their hands on it, so they’ve never been able to claim any royalties!). Howick was the home of the Grey family from 1319 until the 5th Earl Grey left it to his daughter Lady Mary Howick in 1963. The present Lord and Lady Howick live in the West Wing. The house has a couple of rooms open to the public but mostly its worth visiting for the gardens and arboretum.

We ambled around the woodland gardens before heading for the church which sits within the grounds. The Church of St Micheal and All Angels is an early Victorian building which apparently used to have a Gothic marble canopy – which is like a stone carved decoration usually over the altar – but the 5th Earl disliked it so much that personally took a hammer and chisel to it!

The most interesting part of the church as far as I’m concerned are the Howick Kneelers. A display of nearly 90 hand-stitched kneelers, all designed and produced by local people as part of a community project. Made in 2018-19 the kneelers depict local history, architecture, nature and landscapes and 150 local people were involved in this project. Impressive! Here are just two – they are all just as lovely.

From the church we headed back towards the house for a cuppa and then on to the bog garden which will be at its best in a couple of weeks once the irises are in flower

A little further along is a beautiful, sensory garden designed for the National Autistic Society. It’s been developed for those with autism but anyone can go in – its worth a visit to feel how peaceful it is and marvel over how creatively its been designed.

After walking on through meadows and fields of daffodils we had a quick sit-down to admire the view before heading towards the ‘The Long Walk’.

“The Long Walk” is a one and a half mile path through woodland following the Howick Burn to the sea. It does feel like it’s never going to end. And be warned – once you go through the turnstile about three quarters of the way along there is no going back! To return to the gardens (and your car) you have to take the coast path and follow a farm track to the main road which is about a 2 mile walk. We’ve done it before so were prepared with a picnic to eat once we reached at the beach.

We sit on the seawall and eat lunch watching some diving birds – maybe Tern – plunging face first into the water for their lunch. The coast path is lined with gorse with glimpses of a calm sea where we can see Eider Ducks floating.

It’s great to be back by the sea so we take our time along the coast path before turning inland for the long road walk back to the gardens where we treat ourselves to ice-cream!

I’m back! Writing about Rambling…..

April 27, 2025April 27, 2025ricketyrambler4 Comments

I’m back. It’s been a long time, lots has happened while I’ve been away – but here I am, maybe just for one or two posts….who knows! Depends on loads of stuff, especially whether I feel like writing/rambling/taking pictures. Anyway here I am for now – send me some inspirational words if you have time.

Last November my lovely friend, Ms B, and I took a short break in London. She lives in Cornwall, I live in Scotland….so we don’t see each other often except on What’s App, but we’ve managed to keep in touch since I left Cornwall nearly 10 years ago and I love spending time with her when we can get together. We used to go out walking in Cornwall back in the good old days, and we were chatting over a glass or two of wine one evening about how much we miss those walks – and I found myself agreeing to a challenge in 2025…..its that 1000 mile thing again, that thing that I’ve always said I’ll do and have never quite achieved! I’m almost afraid to post this ….1000 miles in 2025 – boots-on walking, meandering barefoot, ricketyrambling along the road – it all counts!

I started on 1st January and its been tough going so far – the weather was shockingly miserable to start with, it was a long, dark and cold winter, Storm Eowyn blew in causing havoc, and I sprained my ankle in week 1! I’m plodding on, not meeting my monthly target but hoping I can catch up now the weather is improving. So get your boots out and your sunhats on and join me – send me a message so I can spur you on – set your own goal and get walking!

You can sign up for the actual Walk 1000 Miles challenge with Country Walking Magazine and join all the Facebook groups and get badges and stickers and things if you are inclined. I’m just going it alone with Ms B cheering me on and joining in from Cornwall – or walking with me on those occasions that we can meet.

Here are some photos to get us going – I managed between 45 – 48 miles a month in the first 3 months and then last month nearly 70 miles! But really I need to be doing about 100 miles a month from now on…..eek!

St Abbs in February – not so dark but pretty cold!

So …… having said all that – Ms B and I have just had a lovely few days in The Cotswolds……and you’ll be hearing about that next.

In other news……..I’ve been reading Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews, my very good friend and walking companion – https://kerriandrews.co.uk/book/pathfinding-on-walking-motherhood-and-freedom/ – a wonderful book on the subject of the challenges and upheavals becoming a mother.

And next weekend Mr M will be at Art@Ancrum in the Scottish Borders – https://www.artatancrum.org.uk/ with his amazing quirky ceramics – so if you’re local or visiting – drop in and say hello!

See you soon!