After the graduation, Simon and Sophie stayed in St Andrews for the graduation ball. We went to collect them on the Saturday morning, via breakfast at The Horn on the A90. The Horn’s A90 Behemoth was voted the best bacon sandwiches in the world in an online poll, so naturally, we had to verify that – I can confirm that they are indeed amazing – more than 10 rashers of deep fried bacon in a roll really sets you up for the day! Having said that, we spent the rest of the day chilling at the flat, or wandering around Perth, I didn’t even get out in the MX-5! Aside from the bacon roll, my highlight was watching Lewis Hamilton’s stunning pole lap at Silverstone.
The last day of our trip, also mine and Jen’s anniversary, was mainly spent driving back to Coventry. Leaving after breakfast meant that we had all day to make the journey, so decided to take a scenic route through the borders, insprired by the 2012 Evo COTY which was partially based in the area. After reading through the Evo article, the A708 from Selkirk to Moffat, along the shore of St Mary’s Loch, was chosen as our route. Seeing as we would need to pass fairly close to Musselburgh to get to the A708, we decided to stop at Luca’s, my favourite ice cream shop.
After a gorgeous “Alaskan” sundae for me and a hot fudge sundae for Jen, we got back to the car and for the first time this year had to put suncream on (remember we were still in Scotland at this point!), before setting off towards the A708, passing through Newtongrange, where my Dad grew up. Diving down the A7 brought back memories of driving to Newtongrange when my gran still lived there. Turning off onto the A708 got us out of the traffic, but the road was much narrower, it was mainly second and third gears in the MX-5, but the road flowed nicely. As we approached Saint Mary’s Loch the drizzle started, by the end of the loch it was full on raining – rubbish! Then, to make matters work we got stuck behind a group of bikers and some tourists, who were driving very slowly. I probably wouldn’t have driven much faster, as the road had narrowed and the conditions were pretty bad, but it was frustrating being stuck at the end of a long, slow moving queue of traffic on twisty roads. When we got to Moffat we drove past a classic car show, which lifted the mood. From Moffat it was straight down the M74, then M6 and M6 Toll to Coventry.
As it was our anniversary, we went for dinner at the Pizza Express we went to on our first date – the perfect way to round off a brilliant long weekend!
Total mileage: 1,087