Pretty Cool!

This past summer we replaced the carpet in our living room and throughout the bedroom wing of our house.  The bedroom carpet had been replaced 10 years prior but because the living is separate, step-down and a more formal space, the carpet in that room had held up pretty well and we had actually been living with that carpet since 1988.  So that carpet was 24 years old when we replaced it!  That's pretty old for carpet in a family home.

It was definitely beginning to show signs of aging.  Not many, but a few spots here and there.  A little bit of worn-down.  But the nail polish which Gordon  had spilled about a year ago while trying to open the bottle for Natalie proved to be the worst problem.  Do you have any idea how impossible it is to clean up a sizable amount of nail polish from a light colored carpet?  The carpet needed replacing after 24 YEARS!

Yesterday a stood in a room with a carpet that was 264 years old!  Not one but two rooms!

After such a sunny and lovely day on Monday, Tuesday's weather proved to be quite different.  Cold and rainy and, in fact, it was reported that there had been snow at the top of the Beef Tub that morning.  So the four of us decided to go to the Dumfries House just over an hour away.   The home was built between 1754 and 1759 for the 5th Earl of Dumfries and is virtually the same as when it was built.  Including the carpets and furnishings dating to the 1700's.  A LOT of the furniture in the home was designed and built by Chippendale in what was the beginning of his fabulous career.  In fact, the home was going to be sold and all the items in the home put up for auction through Christy's.  One piece of furniture, a kind of bookcase/china hutch, had an offer of 20,000,000 pounds on it.  That's over 30 million dollars!!!!!  In June 2007, HRH The Prince of Wales, under his title as the Great Steward of Scotland, headed a consortium of charities and heritage bodies to purchase this unique house, its contents and adjoining land, in order to keep this historical jewel intact and accessible to the public.  So we went to visit.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take ANY pictures inside the home so please click on my link and check out the home and read about it....it's fascinating.

Our drive there was not unique....up the motor way about 30 minutes and then cutting through some uninteresting back roads until we landed at Dumfries House an hour later.  We took the tour, had a little cafe lunch and headed home on another route.  On this route home we came across a narrow little valley in one way reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands and in another, the Cumberland Mountains in the Lake District of England.  Here are some pictures of our cut-through scenic drive:

 And then dropped down the Beef Tub into Moffat:

Moffat from afar.

Changing trees on the road into Moffat.

When we returned home Gordon dropped Bob, Jeanne and I on Well Street to purchase some items for dinner.  Lamb and some jarred goods and a little shopping for Jeanne and Bob's picnics while they travel around Ireland.  We also stopped in Lothlorian again for one more quick look around and I purchased a beautifully detailed cake server. Then off to the Black Bull

Jeanne getting personal with THE black bull!

for a pint and the Star Bar

for a last toast before heading back up to the house for a yummy Lamb Stew which Jeanne prepared and a couple bottles of red wine.  The boys watched a soccer game on TV while Jeanne and I a last visit in their before we all hit the sack at 11:00ish.

This morning Bob and Jeanne were up by 6:00 a.m. to head off on their partial roadtrip down the motorway into England to catch the ferry boat to Ireland.  Today Gordon and I are going to Edinburgh to walk around and have a meal at the Canny Mans Pub that Maureen is always raving about!  We are spending the night and in the early afternoon catching a flight to Frankfurt for a tour along the Rhine River in Germany.

By the way, the 264 year old carpet?  In the two rooms that had identical carpets, they have devised a way to copy the exact pattern of the carpet, print it onto a long mat and lay it over the original carpet matching exactly the same pattern.  When you are standing on the mats you have the feeling that you are standing on the real carpet but actually standing on a replica while looking at the lovely room and the 264 year old carpet!  Pretty cool.