Merry Christmas

[sandy]

Merry christmas to you all from us in Gretna

[Mountain Goat]

Happy Christmas back.

I have a strange but true story to tell about Gretna if it is Gretna Green.

[dtb]

Best wishes from a Macc lad in the High Peak.

[sandy]

Happy Christmas back.

I have a strange but true story to tell about Gretna if it is Gretna Green.

Gretna Green is a small part of Gretna. We are in the centre of Gretna the Green where the Blacksmith shop is, is 1/2 mile from us on the edge of Gretna. But gretna is a village.

[Mountain Goat]

I once went up there and stayed in a campsite while travelling to Scotland from Wales. It was very dark and rainy and the other caravans were parked right next to the main road. We had a caravan and a tent as there were 4 of us. (I did have a larger 5 birth caravan but was told that Scotland was all small roads so I bought a cheap secondhand 2 birth caravan for my parents to stay in and took that instead. Turns out only one road we went on was narrow and that was actually not unlike some of our Welsh B roads).
But anyway. Wanting to have a quiet nights sleep I decided to set up the other side of the campsite away from the other caravans and away from the main road.
What I did not find out until early morning was that this grassy bank I had pitched behind happened to have the main motorway in and out of scotland right behind it!

An odd thing happened just before for us to find the campsite. My Dad was on water tablets so we needed to find a toilet and we could not find a place to park.
So around 100 miles later we decided we had to pretend we were a lorry and use the lorry bays instead. Following their car and caravan signs in those motorway service stations in England is stupid as they direct you back onto the motorway... So we had to break rules on the third one after already going in and out two without success. Plenty of space, just their stupid signs!
Anyway. So when we got to the third it was already dark and so we went to ask this guy who was wearing old yellow waterproof rainwear as it was pouring down. He said four miles further on was Gretna Green where we would find a campsite. I turned to thank him and he was gone. He had vanished and there was no way he could have reached anywhere as the few lorries there were too far right at the other side. There was nothing there, just open car park for lorries. As I wanted to drive off I even quickly got out to look incase he was either behind the caravan or somewhere I could not see him. Nope. He wasn't there! No open drains etc. One minute I was watching him in the mirror and I turned to talk to my parents and then went to look and he wasn't trere!

[sandy]

Hi MG. I know the services you are talking about. Remember years ago when we moved to Gretna we went to those services and also went around several times because of the silly signs. They are still there today. But never met a goast man in a yellow rain coat. I remember we did find the worst Kentuky Fried Chicken in the country there. It was horrible.

[RAF96]

I had my honeymoon in Edinburgh in April 1965. It was shut. We couldn’t find any places to eat or entertain ourselves over the weekend and as we were chucked out of the B&B for the whole day we did a lot of walking and looking in shop windows in the rain.
Slightly different nowadays and I love Edinburgh when the Fringe is on. The firm used to pay us to do airfield surveys which ‘just happened’ to coincide with the festival.