Scotland - Five on Friday

It's Friday rolling around again and time to join in with Amy over at the fabulous Love Made My Home. We're a random bunch from all over the world. The posts are always fun to read and I always seem to learn something new.

This week I'm going to share another few pictures from my seven weeks visiting Mum in England. While I was there we took a coach holiday up to Scotland. It was my first time visiting. I definitely want to go back. It was SO beautiful. I think I spent most of the week with my mouth open in awe. It was lovely to go on holiday with Mum and see these wonderful places with her.

I'll share five memories and tell just a little about them.

Sweetheart Abbey - ruins of a lovely abbey. So tall and majestic. A stunning, peaceful place.

A sort of romantic story to go along with it. The name seems to make sense!

Kelpie Marquettes at Kirkcudbright. These are 'miniatures' of the Kelpies that reside in Falkirk. These are handcrafted by artist Andy Scott and are 1/10th the size of the ones in Falkirk. Apparently these were actually created first. Up close they are really quite stunning.

O, my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.

O, my Luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

The beautiful town of Dumfries. Lovely walks along the river. Mum and I misjudged how far away the coach was parked and was almost late for pick-up time. We were guilty of being the last ones on the coach that day!

Dumfries is also the burial place of the famous poet Robbie Burns. St. Michael's churchyard where he is buried is just magnificent. Inside the church we were lucky enough to be show around by a lovely man who told us some of the history.

The mausoleum where his remains are today. So much to see in this town and not nearly enough time!

Drumlanrig Castle was one of the three castle we managed to see while we were in Scotland. It's a lovely place with just beautiful gardens. Somewhere I could have definitely spent more time.

 An interesting fact:- in 2003 four men, acting as tourists, stole the Leonardo da Vinci painting Madonna of the Yarnwinder with nothing more than an axe! They have since improved security. The painting was found!

 I could share all day - I took so many pictures and there were other places we visited but for my fifth this week I'm revisiting one of the things I talked about a couple of weeks ago - Pigs Gone Wild, the art trail in Ipswich displayed over the summer. The pigs were all auctioned off and raised over 150,000 pounds for St. Elizabeth Hospice. The pig I featured the other week was Ed Sheer-ham, a play on the singer Ed Sheeran, who comes from Framlingham which is not far from Ipswich. 

The pig was auctioned for 6,200 pounds and was apparently purchased by Ed Sheeran! I wonder exactly what he's going to do with it!