A Trip to Ayr

The day out at Loch Lomond proved to be too much for a recovering system and I was wiped out for several days afterwards (thinks: maybe I should have tried a bit harder to get a flu jab last autumn) but I was better enough to contemplate going out again by Wednesday when our son took advantage of our presence to blag a lift into Uni and back. His campus is at Ayr, and he was only going to be about three hours, so we cast around for somewhere to visit, and from a very limited set of  choices - well it was January - decided to visit the Burns Birthplace Museum. There we discovered that the  cottage where Burns was actually born was 'undergoing restoration' but there is a very fancy-nancy Burns Centre to wit: 

Nice, innit? A team at Glasgow University has just done a study which shows that Robbie Burns is worth some £200 million a year to the Scottish economy, so I suppose that justifies having something like this. I am not all that bothered about Burns myself ( a matter of ignorance rather than antipathy) , but it can't be denied he is well-loved the world over. 

It being lunchtime when we arrived we had something to eat. The cafeteria hs a very nice mural

The OH had his usual burger - naturally here it was a Burns Burger (really? a Burns burger?) and I had a scone. I have said before, possibly here and certainly elsewhere, that I should cure myself of the habit of having scones out because they are almost always a disappointment. But I never learn. Here's my scone before I tried to eat it 

and here it is the moment I tried to put butter on it. 

I cannot stress enough that scones should not do this. 

Never mind, the Centre filled the time quite nicely and we then drove back to Ayr and parked for a look round the shops. I found another random statue to photograph

I had a huge success in the Ayr branch of Marks and Spencers (yes, really) where, unlike their counterpart in Braehead they actually had some long sleeved ladies pyjamas. Even more surprising thay had some in my size, which I liked, and which were in the final reduction sale section. They cost me £3.49. And yes that is a three!

Ayr is not a thriving town. It was once, but it isn't now and you only have to spend ten minutes there to realise it. But I'll tell you something. It's welcoming.  Every person there whose eye you catch smiles at you  and says hello. I found that quietly impressive.