In the South

Grey Galloway is the title of a symphonic poem composed by the academic  Hawick-born John Blackwood McEwen in 1908, shortly before his (slightly) more famous Symphony No 5 in C sharp minor, known as the Solway.

But Galloway, where I have been spending the past fortnight, is today far from grey. It  is a  place of lush pastures, grand forests, scrupulously white-washed cottages, grazing cattle, tree-lined roads often quite French in their symmetry. The Solway is not necessarily a matter of mud, rocks, and smelly seaweed, as is popularly supposed, but of vast sandscapes, distant seascapes, and neat waterfront villages, such as Kippford, which again could be as French, or Cornish, as they are Scottish.

Kippford, indeed, is a delight, with its Anchor Hotel, facing the marina, serving seafood lunches and suppers on its sunny outdoor terrace, with cask ale to rival the wine. Dogs - we have two King Charles spaniels - are as welcome as they seem to be in most of Galloway, and as they also are in the enclosed garden of the sweet little cafe-restaurant at New Abbey, where you can eat fresh or smoked salmon, scrambled free-range eggs, chicken liver pate with oatcakes and where, without charge, you can  drink your own wine. The ice-cream, of course, is Cream of Galloway. as good as it gets.

While admittedly touristic, New Abbey, south of Dumfries, is a place of sublime grace and holiness, its cafe sitting in the shadow of the ruined Sweetheart Abbey itself.

Such is modern Galloway, which we have visited two summers running and have come to adore.
5 August 2014