Planning short breaks in the winter months is always beset by the short days and of course the risk of inclement weather. For the December trip in our first year of monthly short breaks by train we decided to ignore the weather risk, and simply accept the inevitability of short days (the above ‘sunrise’ photo was taken well after breakfast!) … indeed to face it square on by heading north into even shorter days, and return to Dundee after our fantastic couple of days there last year. The answer is to make the most of good food and drink when it is dark (is that why whisky was invented?) and to take advantage of good short-term weather forecasts and the shelter afforded by museums, churches and trains (and pubs!) to avoid rain, which we did pretty successfully.

With long train journeys bookending our four-day break, it is important to enjoy the travelling. And going north up the East Coast mainline, it is impossible not to enjoy the journey of cathedrals (Peterborough, Durham, York), castles ( Durham, Lindisfarne, Bamburgh, Edinburgh), bridges (Newcastle, Forth, Tay), islands (Farnes, Holy Island, Bass Rock), the Angel of the North and a whole lot more.

So another two nights in the Premier Inn right on the bank of the Firth of Tay: what’s not to love with the low sun only just rising above the horizon, but lighting the Firth in dramatic spectacle?

And it just happens to be a couple of hundred metres from one of our favourite buildings ever, the utterly magnificent V&A. A whale from one angle, the prow of a ship from another, and walking underneath it has all the echoing wilderness of a dripping Scottish sea-cave:

Surrounded by water, it is equally as impressive in reflection…

… and the delights continue after dark.

So impressive that going inside the building is almost disappointing, though the ‘strata’ and (genuine) fossils are a magnificent touch.

As a building the V&A really benefits from the sun creating an ever-changing interplay of light and shade, so it is fortunate that our day and a half of daylight were under blue skies, also great conditions to stroll along the Firth to the Railway Bridge:

The sunlight showed the many monumental buildings in the city centre to their best effect…

… a city centre also filled with public art and sculpture:

 

Churches, pubs (here the Trades House) and the museum provided us with culture and sustenance…

And for us one very special place was the graveyard known as the Howff, a beautifully unmanicured space, where Death begets Life.

But apart from the gulls and Shags on the Firth, the main other wildlife interest was in the adornments of lichens on pretty much every street tree:

Our next move came about at the recommendation of a friendly street-sweeper who out of the blue came up to us and suggested we visit Broughty Ferry, even giving us the details of how to get there by bus. And as we had a couple of hours before the anticipated arrival of rain, it would have been rude not to. A very lovely peaceful fishing village, with harbour and castle, this kept us very happy.

Rock Pipits, Turnstones and a partially albino Carrion Crow fed along the beach, where Sea Mayweed and Sea Rocket were still clinging to flower, and again lichens added their splashes of colour to the harbour walls:

And as the first rain arrived it was into the delightful Ship Inn, where we tucked in to the very best bowl of Cullen Skink just before the kitchen closed, and essentially decided the treat we would try and recreate for our Christmas lunch this year!

We’ve still not done with Dundee! We will be back again. Even though it sits astride the National Cycle Route 1, the very same as I worked with Sustrans to deliver as its first stage through Wivenhoe some 30 years ago,  we are perfectly content to let the train take the strain!

——————————————————————————————————————

All too soon, it was time to head to Perth, the destination for our final night, with dire warnings of Storm Darragh ringing in our ears. Amber warnings were everywhere, for snow just to the north, wind just to the south, and rain all over! And even though the rain came, we largely missed it in the pubs and other place of shelter…

Perth was clearly once a place of considerable wealth, to judge from its buildings, but now it feels as though it has seen much better days.

The same sense of faded glories ran through our hotel (the Salutation), the sight of which on a TV programme originally piqued our interest to stay there – but the excellence of its breakfast in the palatial dining room was undeniable.

The mighty Tay still flows on through Perth, as it has since the city’s heyday, under a lovely sandstone bridge, in which erosion of the sand matrix has left pebbles embedded in relief, like natural braille…

Lichens once more adorned the rocks and walls, and trees were filled with tseeping Redwings…

And in the backwaters of the mill races (leats) that run though the city, we had excellent views of a Kingfisher, a shaft of brilliance on the dreariest of days.

St Ninian’s Cathedral provided both shelter from the showers and plenty of interest, as did the newly refurbished museum, with some excellent exhibits including the Stone of Scone/aka Destiny in its new permanent home. Similarly the Art Gallery was just the right size, not too big but with enough fascinating art (much by William Gilles) to pass a happy couple of hours.

 

But lunchtime arrived and it was time to head homewards via Glasgow and the West Coast Mainline as the storm raged further south. Yes, we could see the snow settled on higher ground between Perth and Stirling, and quite a lot of flooding, but for us just a few minutes’ delay. Then into England, a points failure at Penrith added to the delay, but all in all it amounted to just two hours. Not bad really given the severity of the storm and the dire warnings that preceded it – and of course, it meant we got our money back!