There are guest houses and there are hotels and there are Premier Logs and there are Travel Bins. Any number of soul sapping, mind numbing hostelries that you simply must erase from all memory and all experience, ......oooooh...... about seven seconds after you gayly skip out of some pointlessly revolving door. Unless you really hated it; To which end you can plot some bitter retribution by ranting on some online forum or web site. Such as this one.
However, I would just like to mention what an absolutely superb time my wife and I spent at Low Kirkbride Farm. It is the antithesis of the ordinary, mundane hotel.
Once you have found it, you will find a very warm welcome, which for us at least, included tea with lots of cake, shortbread and choccy biscuits, along with a warm wood burning fire and a friendly cat, Clio. Oh, and access to a big telly in the living room. Loads of books, maps, games if one is inclined to entertain oneself inside. A comfy bed, (with electric blanket and vibrating action no less!), in an upstairs room with a pleasant view over the garden, to the verdant fields beyond and the Scottish Hills in the distance. (The view from the strangely rather large window in our ample sized en-suite bathroom was almost as good.) Don't worry! No-one can see you in your duds, because outside the window there is only beautiful,...There are guest houses and there are hotels and there are Premier Logs and there are Travel Bins. Any number of soul sapping, mind numbing hostelries that you simply must erase from all memory and all experience, ......oooooh...... about seven seconds after you gayly skip out of some pointlessly revolving door. Unless you really hated it; To which end you can plot some bitter retribution by ranting on some online forum or web site. Such as this one.
However, I would just like to mention what an absolutely superb time my wife and I spent at Low Kirkbride Farm. It is the antithesis of the ordinary, mundane hotel.
Once you have found it, you will find a very warm welcome, which for us at least, included tea with lots of cake, shortbread and choccy biscuits, along with a warm wood burning fire and a friendly cat, Clio. Oh, and access to a big telly in the living room. Loads of books, maps, games if one is inclined to entertain oneself inside. A comfy bed, (with electric blanket and vibrating action no less!), in an upstairs room with a pleasant view over the garden, to the verdant fields beyond and the Scottish Hills in the distance. (The view from the strangely rather large window in our ample sized en-suite bathroom was almost as good.) Don't worry! No-one can see you in your duds, because outside the window there is only beautiful, lumpy countryside, some sheep, three ponies, a few cows and maybe a woodpecker or a even a pheasant. No pesky noise. You can only hear the faint burble of the brook that runs past the entrance to the farm and the calls of the wildlife echoing across the nearby valley. At night, there is almost utter silence apart from the odd hoot from the local barn owl, hunting in the expansive darkness. And it is really, really dark indeed - ideal for staring upward, slack jawed at the spectacular heavens. So bring your telescope or your binoculars or just borrow a pair from Mr and Mrs Kirk. Which brings me to the best reason to spend your time and money here.
The owners, the Kirk family, have clearly invested a lot of time and effort to provide the very best service they can, given that they are already running a working farm. They are welcoming, accommodating, decent people for whom, during our visit, nothing was too much trouble. Tasty fresh organic food for breakfast. Tick. Advice on what to see and do. Tick. Need some bikes for tootling around the local villages. Tick.
By the way, theres a surprising amount of places to...More
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