Hawick–take 2 Friday

Clouds and silver linings stuff.
We went to visit a National Trust property only a few miles from where we stayed last night. Originally it was too far out of our way. Cragside was where the first electric light, powered by hydroelectricity, in the world was turned on. Instead of using an powered archimedes screw to move water up hill, water running down hill turned the screw which was connected to a generator. Simple and clever. The house itself was impressive with grand rooms and architecture that appealed to us. The owner was an inventive lawyer who ended up engineering instead.

After this visit, we headed back to Hawick to check on the progress of the car, with the option of visiting other stuff if the car wasn't ready. It seems that the car was finished a matter of minutes before we called in. We moved the car near to our accommodation for tonight and set off to Edinburgh airport to drop the hire car (still prefer the Peugeot to the Volvo). On the way we called into Robert Smail's printing works, a Scottish National Trust property that was also too far out of our way originally, but something Rick wanted to see. The printing works was operational for 120 years, closing in 1986. The National Trust does operate the works on a small jobbing basis. It is the only operational jobbing printing works in the nation. There are many printing presses from years gone by and the operations were demonstrated to us by a very knowledgable guide. We then went into the type setting room for demonstrations. Could have spent much longer there, but the property was closing as it was 5pm (we still had to get to Edinburgh then back to Hawich).

Got to Edinburugh around 6 pm and dropped the car, we had already rung the assist people in France to arrange a taxi back to Hawick. Must check credit on the phone after all the calls to France. Taxi arrived around 6:30 and we got back to Hawick just after 8pm. Overall, we still managed to see a lot, even with the delay. Got to see stuff we wanted to that otherwise we wouldn’t have. Back on track again.