Day 1 Berwick-on-tweed

 Thursday April 21

Not an early start, which was not important to-day. Leaving home, laden, in our 'new' three year old car we arrived at our Travelodge at four o'clock.

Our previous car went in for pre trip service last week, when we were told that it needed over £2,000 of new parts including four new tyres. Almost simultaneously, a three year old exact duplicate of our model, in black, came into the garage. Only 25,000 miles on the clock. Too good an opportunity to miss. Pam picked it up yesterday afternoon. Adrian came round to help do last minute jobs in the garden, and to carry out the luggage before packing the car. He's fantastic. Nothing is too much trouble and he's a perfectionist. 

Two moth traps fill the back seat, my Rollator is perched on top of the full boot contents.

A lovely sunny day to be travelling, marred by two tailbacks. The first a short one, at Sutton Bridge where only one lane is in use. They're painting the bridge.The second, in Yorkshire, was over an hour of stop start traffic due to an accident. That's what our SatNav told us. The new one is a Garmin touchscreen, totally alien to me. I've brought the book in tonight. I got the map up and we then had - at first startling - pings, when a traffic message appeared on the screen.

Tomorrow we drive to Kinross, plenty of time for some  birding along the Edinburgh coast.

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