Peebles

上个礼拜（7月21日-27日）的天气转热 （最高温达摄氏21度吧）。我们趁太阳出来的那几天，尽量出门走走。星期四坐一个小时的巴士到一个靠近苏格兰边界的小镇。我们从小镇的大路走到河岸，并沿着河走了大概两个多小时。途中，让靖恒在游乐场玩了一下。因为天气热，好多小孩子在河边玩水，抓鱼，甚至游泳，还有年轻人在晒太阳。看到河边清幽的景色，觉得一个城市/小镇有条河多好：爱丁堡的河太远了。本来想带靖恒到另一个游乐场玩才回爱丁堡，谁知，沿岸回途中他跌倒，哭得很厉害。起初以为只是被石头擦伤，后来看到红肿的手掌和手腕，才怀疑应该是被什么东西咬。就这样，哭着哭着，在建明肩膀上睡着了，我们也就不去游乐场了。手上很快就消肿了，可是留下挺多的红点，好像被好几只昆虫之类的东西咬，过了两天才消失。我们坐的巴士在高速公路上行驶，旁边都是牧羊，牛和大片大片的草地，很写意。巴士到了爱丁堡地区，窗口的风景就变成住宅和商店，空气也没那么清爽了。靖恒总在巴士上睡着，这次也不例外。只是，或许因为被建明抱着时，睡了一会儿，他在车上跟我一起静静地看着牛羊，一下子后才睡去。

The weather grew warmer for the week of 21 to 27 July. On Thursday, we went to Peebles, a town within the Scottish Borders, about 1 hour's bus ride away. Peebles is a nice town and a river flows through it. It is advertised as a top independent retailing town, though I am not sure what that means. We walked along the High Street, with its stretch of shops, and then along River Tweed, to as far as Neidpath Castle (no longer open), and back. Along the river, there were families seizing this great sunny moment to frolic in the river. How nice it is to have a river passing through a town! On the way back from the castle, we had intended to bring Ethan to another bigger playground before taking the bus home. However, he fell down - nothing unusual, that - and screamed very loudly as if in great pain. On closer look, I saw that his palm and wrist had red, swollen marks like some allergic reactions. Later they subsided into small red dots. It seemed he had been bitten by some bugs. The small red spots bothered him for the rest of the day but cleared up in two days. Crying himself to sleep on Jianming's shoulders, we decided to forego the playground and make our way back home. The bus travelled along A703, a nice scenic road with pastures, lots of sheep and some cattle within sight. Tired in mind and body, one is suddenly envious of the grazing sheep. Out of Scottish Borders, and into Midlothian, the scenery changed to shops and houses and staler air, lulling one to sleep - almost.