We caught the new CalMac service that travelled to the Outer Hebrides via Hexham. It was a very special boat that could cover both land and sea.

I very much enjoyed riding along beside the dolphins, even though trying to photograph them with my new camera was an impossibility.

I also got very excited when the route took in the B family seat in the far north of Scotland, and passed the filming of a historical drama and a garden fête at Elmwood just off Darlington Road in Stockton-on-Tees. (It also has to be said that Darlington Road looked much neater than Edinburgh’s Leith Walk these days.)