Keep Moving - Week 12

So we started Sunday with a trip to Dechmont UFO trail, A memorial commemorating the only Scottish police investigation into an extraterrestrial incident.  In November 1979 Robert Taylor, a forestry worker, parked his truck and walked his dog through a path to a newly planted forest area north of the hill known as Dechmont Law.  He reported that he happened upon a flying dome hovering above the forest floor. The dome sent out two smaller spheres that dragged him to the larger dome. The last thing Taylor remembered was a strange acrid smell. He came round sometime later and the spheres were gone. Taylor made it back to his truck, but was unable to start the vehicle and had to walk home.  When he arrived home with torn, disheveled clothes and various cuts, Taylor’s wife called the local doctor and the police. The police took him back to the scene of the incident, where they found unusual marks that looked like ladders and others that Taylor claimed were made by the spheres.  The police treated the incident as an assault and conducted a criminal investigation.  Mr Taylor, who died in 2007, was a respected war hero and teetotal churchgoer. No-one doubted that he was sincere in what he believed he had seen and throughout the rest of his life he never deviated from his story.  No UFO's today though!  We then stopped at Dryden Tower, initially intended as a hilltop eye-catcher for Dryden House (which was demolished in 1938), it is still a prominent landmark. It originally belonged to a wider landscape known locally as 'The Pleasure' which was destroyed by the construction of Bilston Glen colliery.  Amazing building, this is my "Grand Designs" project when I win the Euro Millions (gin terrace, bath on the roof...!!). Then we came back via the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies which we both declared an awful lot more shiny since we were last there in a professional capacity (circa 30 years ago!). We saw “Canter” by Andy Scott, an incredible piece of art and fitting for a veterinary school that was originally established to support the treatment of working horses.  Random sighting of the day was a large red deer hind in with a field of sheep, surely an escapee from somewhere?

Local plods during the week then another trip to the Hopetoun Monument near Haddington, it was open this time so we climbed the 95ft-tall tower via the 132 steep steps to the top.