Washed away, almost...

Rear of Burn's Cottage

It's school holiday time so naturally the weather is miserable. I cannot remember the last time it rained so persistently for such a long time.
But as it is school holidays we have to do something other than xbox all day, and when Ciaran suggested watching DVDs it wasn't appreciated too much. The other suggestion - take the ferry to Arran and go gorge walking - also wasn't likely to happen but it did suggest going outside wasn't altogether out of the question.
The new Burns Museum was a eventual winner. This Burns is the one of "Auld Lang Syne" at New Years and "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose" from my Leaving Cert fame. I have to admit that I am not a great fan but as a local boy done well he has a huge following here generally, and in Ayrshire in particular.
The new museum was opened in January this year and despite it being so close and us being just down the road for the Eddie Reader concert we had never been.
It was really quite an interesting visit. Unlike most poets who only become famous after they die, Burns was already popular during his lifetime so once he died people did start to collect and preserve items of his. So the museum is full of his original notebooks and the like. It was actually quite interesting.
The weather though was terrible. By this time it had been raining all day, but getting heavier and heavier. The new building is across the road from the Burns birthplace cottage but it was so wet we had to drive across. Once we go there we got soaked getting from the car to the cottage and from the cottage to the gift shop. By the time we got out of the gift shop we were already soaked so we didn't really notice the run back to the car - but the car did steam up as the 3 of us dried off!