Love the Borders. These are the Scottish Border country just north of the English Scottish border – a league or so from where Hadrian built his wall to keep the marauding Scots out – and he manned it with soldiers from Syria because they were the toughest in the world. Must have been a shock to be transplanted from sunny hot Syria to shivering Blighty.

I’ve had a good year for short stays away – Lanzarote for a week, another while cycling to Cheltenham and back, another few days in the Isle of Man coming up, a week in a writers’ retreat in Greece in August and at least one a day a week in Manchester! Absence makes the home a fonder return. My wife hasn’t had so many days away and needed a break from university work so we risked a long weekend – lured by a well-known coach company’s brochure, only self-drive without the coach trip. Yes, Borders country – Melrose, around 30 miles south of Edinburgh. Beautiful scenery of rolling green hills, mixed deciduous and coniferous woodland and gurgling rivers (so much rain this year made the River Tweed into a raging torrent. En route, we stopped in quaint Peebles, to visit the last home of my dad, and his grave. We knew my stepmum had left the town months ago, so we were surprised to see flowers there. Could be that she’d returned from Leeds on dad’s birthday last month. Anyway, there’s now a yellow rose – that one from Texas was a favourite song of his.

And so we arrived at the Waverley Castle Hotel in Melrose. A grand mansion-like building in five acres of rabbits. Haha. Yes they were all over the luscious grass and woodland down to the river. Several things didn’t go to plan at the hotel. I accelerate to mention that we enjoyed the break although we wouldn’t go back to that hotel. The room had recently been refurbished, clean, fresh and with a woodland view. There was a TV but along the same wall as the headboard of the bed! Luckily the bed was on rollers so I ninety degrees it so we could have the luxury of watching TV in bed. I opened my Sony Vaio but there was no wifi in range – not a bad thing when you are on a restful break. Even so I asked at reception if there was a hotspot in the hotel for guests. Hah! The internet has yet to be invented in that part of Melrose.

As a vegan I never expect too much for food when I am not self-catering. I always have fruit and nuts in my rucksack and there’s never a chance of starving to death even if I didn’t eat for a week. Luckily, there was a vegan dish on the dinner menu on the first night so I didn’t feel the need to feed the chef with my needs for the rest of the stay. The porridge for breakfast was marvellous – there is something special about institutional oatmeal simmered in an iron cauldron for hours, maybe months. Rejecting the “full English” I opted for the only vegan alternative cooked plate. I counted 52 beans, a half a tomato and two hash browns. Oh well, we weren’t bulking up for an expedition. That night there was no vegetarian option on the menu except ‘Chef’s special salad’. I opted for that but had to explain the meaning of vegan – ie no dairy, nothing from an animal, thank you, and sorry for the inconvenience. The waitress (From Latvia, a beautiful woman with such a sexy accent) returned from the kitchen to ask, “Are you permitted the fish?” Aaarggh. What came was a sad dish of whole lettuce leaves, mixed grated onion and carrot and a butchered tomato. No protein, but that’s par for the course in most places for emergency vegan nosh. But, hey I err, there was protein. I had nearly finished swallowing the meal when under the last tough lettuce leaf wriggled a wet pink worm, making a bid for freedom. I commiserated with it for its poor diet but hailed the waitress anyway. I didn’t need to say anything – just pointed at the creature. Interesting to watch an elegantly tall woman do a sudden backward step while annunciating OMG. The chef didn’t come out to apologise but sent Miss Latvia to offer a repeated salad – no thanks. I hope she judged by our merriment that we saw the funny side, and I had pointed out that the appearance of the worm indicated the absence of pesticides.

Next morning I wondered if my cooked vegan breakfast would be enriched or at least the portions increased to ‘beef’ us up for the walking ahead, but no. Only 29 beans. At dinner, again no veggie option so I asked for another salad – “Please, no cheese, no eggs, no fish, and no worms.” A smile was returned. I added, “Perhaps chef could make it interesting with nuts, beans, olives – something?” It came as a sad 1950s school salad. I really don’t know how Tripadvisor contributors can so highly praise the cuisine there. It is a lovely building, and I enjoyed relaxing in the lounge’s armchairs reading M john Harrison’s Light for the book group back home. From our room we heard the crooning in the ballroom, but chose to go for walks and watch a little TV. I had to rotate the bed on a daily basis because Mrs N was afraid the maid would get into trouble if she didn’t push it back each day while we were out. Lovely little town is Melrose. Like many in that region, it has a ruined ecclesiastical building – in this case an abbey and fine walks along the river. It has good pubs too – one with vegan alternatives on its dinner menu.

We arrived in Manchester in time to help look after our grandsons on Tuesday.

Did I do any SF writing while away? Nope, hence booking a writers’ retreat stay away. However, I had the pleasure on our return journey to stop in Moffat and meet up with two of the publishing team of LL-Publishing who wisely selected ARIA coming out in August. Jim Brown is the second tallest man in the SF world I’ve met. (The other is Tom Hunter), Zetta is a charming American professional editor. They make a great team, and we had a warm chat about ARIA and publishing in general. Always good to meet up with people I only normally see on the web.

Now for something completely different. I was the first baby born in the British Military Hospital built in Hannover after the second world war. My mum had journeyed to Germany to be with my dad, who was in the Royal Engineers building temporary bridges, etc. The hospital was so unready for me I was fed on sugared water instead of formula milk (mum had heart problems and advised not to breast feed me). It could account for my constant hunger now! I found a website about that hospital in Hannover and they put a small bit about me at the bottom of their site here http://www.qaranc.co.uk/bmhanover.php

Ironically, my son, Rob, is going to Hannover today for his works. How coincidental is that? The world works in mysterious ways.