Borders Notebook

The Borders could handle a wee bit more love: while no one wants the place to be like the Lake District, a-bustle with elderly couples in brightly coloured clothing, a slight increase in appreciation would be acceptable. Flown over, passed through, not much visited, the Borders (by which is meant the cross-border region comprising Berwickshire, Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, and north Northumberland) is scarcely known for what it is, a land not only hooching with history and presently strong — keeping its young — but also astonishingly, ever-changingly, easy on the eye. Thanks to Mother Nature’s intricate palette (the soft colours given focus by the zinging tone of the coo-hides) and geology — that fine secrecy of rivers — and careful land management, and the sudden birds, the land looks sensational. When the interplay of mist and sun is providing theatrical effects and frost adds definition, it can stop traffic.