We recently went with my partner’s family to spend a week in a gorgeous house in the Scottish Borders. We stayed in a beautiful historic tower house near Eyemouth but took day trips to nearby towns and villages to explore. In each of these places, there was a lot of rockpool exploring and beachcombing going on, and we had a great time collecting little bits of pottery, cute shells and copious amounts of sea glass. Once we got home, we turned our findings into lovely pieces of art for our homes, like the ceramic collage I’ve pictured below. Within the rockpools we found little fishies, crabs, shrimp and some starfish! But across the week, we also encountered sheep, deer, birds, a hedgehog, and seals.

While we were away, we celebrated Onya’s birthday with a trip to the lovely St Abb’s. We immediately hit the beach and found some goodies, before climbing up the hill to the visitor centre, doing a spot of birdwatching and then taking a coastal walk along the cliff path. It reminded me a bit of my favourite walk back home in the North East of Scotland, there’s something so powerful about looking out over the coastline while you’re blasted by the wind. Back at the house, we had a delicious BBQ feast and a classic caterpillar cake for the birthday girl.

We also visited Berwick upon Tweed for a wander around the shops and along the Elizabethan town walls, checked the tide times and drove over to Holy Island where we enjoyed local crab sandwiches and ice creams in the sunshine, and went down to Alnwick to explore. There we found a wee market and lots of great charity and antique shops. I managed to find the thrift of the century in the form of a wee picnic basket that I couldn’t help taking home with me. I am so thrilled with it!

The main attraction in Alnwick, which I was so excited for, was Barter Books – one of the largest second-hand bookshops in the UK. It is an old railway station, so they have model trains chugging along above the shelves. It is such a gorgeous space, and I was in awe, taking it all in. But if I’m being honest, I also found it super overwhelming, and the signage and wayfinding were very confusing. I kept moving around trying to find the section I was interested in, and when I finally did find it, there were loads of people in my way, and I couldn’t find many books I was interested in. It was quite an interesting experience because I thought I was going to love it, but actually, I came away overstimulated and stressed. I did, however, pick up a copy of Albert Camus’ The Plague and Samantha Harvey’s Orbital.

But we weren’t always out gallivanting – we had a lot of lovely chill time in the house. In the mornings I got some quiet yoga time in and me and the gals had fun one night doing silly couples’ yoga poses. I started my first-ever hand-stitched embroidery project, which intimidated me to begin with, but I ended up loving giving gentle time to. There was plenty of reading time on the sofa or in my little window reading nook. I was reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and the lovely Onya was dilligently reading my favourite book Circe by Madeline Miller which I gifted to her last Christmas. It really meant a lot how deeply she was engaging with it.

There was one rainy day when we just decided to stay in our PJs and play games the whole time, and that was really cosy. Games were a big part of the week! Adam prepared a DnD style murder mystery game for us with handmade counters, and that was so fun. We did a Magic: The Gathering draft night and played many different games with our new and existing decks. We played all the other faves too; from card games to Ticket to Ride, Cockroach Poker and Jaipur. We had so much fun.

Each next (bar one chippy) we cooked dinner for one another, which was so nice. Kit and I made chilli for our first night and then led a pasta-making workshop for everyone based on what we learned in Italy earlier this year. Together we prepared a butternut squash and ricotta stuffed tortelloni with a tomato and basil sauce, tagliatelle with ragu and a chocolate tiramisu for dessert. It was so much fun to make together, and it was so flipping tasty!

On our way home, we made one last stop in Dunbar, where it was such a beautiful day. They have a gorgeous harbour where we were spotting electric jellyfish, and there was a great market happening that we browsed and picked up a cold juice before driving home.

It was such a beautifully chilled week full of great fun, beaches, food and company, and I can’t wait until we do it again!