Busman's Holiday

So the day came to pack up and head towards home.  We had booked a night in a campsite near Ecclefechan, so we didn't have a hugely long driving day which was good.  When we met up with the Blezards, they recommended a chocolate place to stop at - where they do chocolate workshops.  I booked us in for 12.15, so we had until then to drive the 22 miles to it, so we took the morning slowly.

Cairn

Scotland is much better than us at putting brown tourist signs on the road pointing out places of interest.  We stopped at a cairn which was a prehistoric grave with standing stones and then to a second one which had a stonehenge type arrangement.  Then to a ruined castle - it was closed because of Covid - but still nice to wonder around

We then stopped off at Gatehouse of Fleet for a wander, really really nice town.  Much more affluent than Newton Stewart, all the houses were well looked after, there were some nice shops and an absolutely cavernous cafe which turned out to be amazing.  They had a great display of cakes, so we decided to have 11s, they tasted as good as they looked, although we were stuffed afterwards as the portions were enormous.

Chocolate Goatie!

We found the chocolate place in good time.  We were each given hair nets and purple aprons to wear, we then had to wash our hands throughly before being let loose in the chocolate room.  (I kept quiet about my experience in chocolate).  The workshop was £17 which initially we thought was quite expensive, but we made a chocolate shape each using a cheap plastic mould - I made sure that all of us did a different mould so that I would get 3 new moulds!  

Concentrating hard

  We also made a chocolate bar each - with flavouring and sweeties and then a lollipop each.  It took about an hour, we didn't really learn much, but we had fun.  We also got to 'paint' Tom's face with white chocolate which was fun.  In the shop there were lots of chocolate 'kits' to take home.  Now this is an idea I've not had, but one which I think I could do quite easily, so I bought one to see how they put it together so I can (of course) improve on it!

Chocolate bear!

After a morning of sweet treats, we stopped at the chocolate place for lunch.  Matt and I decided to go halves on soup and haggis nachos.  The soup was great, but the haggis nachos were just insane - i.e. about double the size we were expecting - it overwhelmed us.  Tom had macaroni cheese and immediately regretted it as he couldn't finish it either!  Oh hum, that will teach us to have cakes in the morning!!!!  Luckily there was a massive outdoor play area which we went into afterwards.  We were the only people there, so all 3 of us had a good play (been a while since I've been in a children's playground and I did feel a bit like a giant) it did us all good - stretching legs after such a big lunch.

Whisky o'clock

We then headed to our campsite as we could check in from 2pm.  We had booked at a place called Hoddom Castle.  Completely different to the other campsite we stayed at - it was huge: full of static caravans, glamping pods and cottages and then a couple of tents and a number of camper vans and motorhomes and touring caravans.  By now it was gorgeously hot and sunny - we are talking 25 degrees again.  We arrived, set up and Tom was off on his bike instantly.  We went for a walk along a river (I spent more time paddling in the river than anyone else - might be something to do with lots of flat rounded pebbles on the river banks that made great skimming stones)

We finished off the river walk and headed back to the campsite.  Tom bought himself a soft ball in the shop so we played a hybrid game of volleyball / keepy uppies before enjoying lovely hot showers in a huge spotless and empty toilet block, then to the site pub for tea.  The tea was pretty average - I had veggie curry which was basically a mush of wet vegetables with curry powder mixed in served with rice and naan bread.  Not great, but it was hot and I didn't make it so that's a bonus.

We got back to the van around 9pm, had a game of uno before bedding down for the night.  Had the best night's sleep so far in the van (Matt and I used to sleeping in smaller beds this holiday has probably helped!)