Longtown

We arrived to a near empty cattle market at Longtown, we auctioned three ewes and lambs at £70 a life. A huge texel tup and lamb auctioned at £170! Charlie is replacing wooden slates on the livestock trailer after a slate broke off in my hand.

Seated myself next to an abusive bidder, he was cruel to everybody that passed by him. Today we enjoyed a small breakfast and a cup of strong wake up coffee. We met our neighbour farm selling sheep to preserve grass land; everybody seemed a little dazed by the state of the weather. This afternoon we lost a lamb to scour. Late afternoon Charlie drove to Gateshead, I had messaged a Facebook Market place seller some hours earlier about the sale of a 5 string banjo. Passing over Carter Bar, we over took a Z3, strangely returning on the A68 we were overtook by a Z4, uncanny. I purchased the banjo for £100, and we drove back to Hawick as the sun was setting.

I knew the 140 mile round journey would environmentally trigger auditory hallucinations [my maternal family are geordies; none of whom I know], but I am going to so enjoy learning to play the banjo then additionally writing and composing folk songs.