Gretna

It's very rare that Mark and I spend together just the 2 of us, that's just the way we like it. We love Charlie and Courtney being with us. We decided though we needed to start our 'proper' Christmas shopping, we buy bits throughout the year but because Mark is busy with work leading up to Christmas we usually do the main of the present shopping in October/November. Anyway when he suggested we go up to Gretna shopping village I jumped at the chance, I really like the shops up there. He then suggested we had a night away, a brilliant idea! I sorted childcare and he found us a lovely B&B and off we went, calling in at a farm shop in Penrith on the way (2 pressies crossed off the list there :D ) We were planning on going shopping to the village the Friday evening, we'd wrongly assumed that it would be open until 8ish but it did in fact close at 6pm! Never mind, we had all day Saturday and instead enjoyed a nice meal out and chatted. Wow, the concept of eating out child free and actually being able to talk, amazing, LOL!
So next morning after breakfast we had a mooch at the shopping village and crossed a few more gifts off our list. We had a wander to Gretna Green after, around the gift shops there and bought a couple more gifts. I also bought a thimble and pin badge with my family crest on, my maiden name is Watson, a good ol' Scottish surname! It was only early afternoon by this point and we had finished what we wanted to do so decided to pop into Carlisle on the way home. There was a craft fair on in the town centre which was nice to see, we only bought a couple more pressies there but by this time we were both tired and ready for home. We'd missed Charlie and Courtney and it was lovely to see them again but on the same score I really enjoyed having some time with Mark, just us.