What a wonderful surprise!

Last night Eileen went along to the unveiling of a new section of the Alloway Tunnel art project and posted these pics. this morning and asked if we recognized any of the people featured. Imagine our surprise to see us up there alongside Ada. Turns out the family had us featured as a 50th wedding anniversary present and it took the artist the time since then to finish this section. Immortalized!

In search of the bard...

Friends Mike and Liz will be attending their first Burns Supper soon  (Burns night is 25th January) so we had to take them along to his birthplace and scene of  one of his most famous poems in nearby Alloway 

His humble origins were probably not as nice as this but they have tried to show how the house might have looked and still have some original pieces of his and his parents furniture on display in the nearby heritage centre.

 While we were there the BBC were filming an interview with Ricky Ross (Deacon Blue) on the poet. He insisted on being photographed with me!

We also took them along to the brig o' Doon which features in Burns' 'Tam o'Shanter'

You can read more re this neck of the woods on a previous post here

 Plus more on Rabbie here

'First-footing' through 'Burn's Country'...

 We are very lucky with the location of Pauline's mum's house here in Ayr, the house looks onto what was the old racecourse now an open space used as playing fields. For one of our local walks we cross this on into Belleisle park and golf course (avoiding golf balls). So it was a good one to have as our first walk of 2013.

Then we cross over to another park 'Rozelle'  and on into the village of Alloway. 

It seemed appropriate that we should be walking through Alloway on the first day of the year as this is the birthplace of  Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, the man who gave us 'Auld Lang Syne' among many others.

This is the thatched cottage in the village where he was born.

The 'Auld Kirk' in the village was immortalised in his poem 'Tam o'Shanter'

There is also a pretty little garden with a fine monument to him near the old bridge over the river Doon.

The auld Brig o'Doon was the bridge 'Tam' and his horse were chased over by the witches...

and just as they made the bridge,that the witches couldn't cross, one of them grabbed his horse, Maggie's tail...

For Nannie, far before the rest, 

Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 

And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle; 

But little wist she Maggie's mettle - 

Ae spring brought off her master hale, 

But left behind her ain gray tail; 

The carlin claught her by the rump, 

And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Here is a view  of the 'new'bridge over the river Doon.

 We then headed back through Belleisle park on our way back to Pauline's mum's house with the afternoon weather taking a turn for the better.