A Recipe for Porridge

Day 66 of the End to End started at Rigg and went along to Eastrigg. It was an unpleasant busy road and I found myself walking quicker to get it over. My first mile in 17 minutes may be the quickest of the walk so far.
At Eastrigg I stopped at the Devil’s Porridge Museum, said to be the best tourist attraction in Dumfries and Galloway. In case you didn’t know it’s a different sort of Porridge. Devil’s Porridge was the name given to the noxious mixture that was used to make munitions fuses in WW1. The massive factories at Gretna and Eastrigg were set up to make it in 1915. Women came from all over the North of England and South Scotland to work there at what was quite a dangerous place at the time.
They required accommodation and two towns were built to house them: Eastrigg with its Commonwealth Street names, and the part of Gretna that I walked through yesterday afternoon.

The museum also charts the end of the factory once the war was over, and then how the area came to be involved in WW2 and in the development of nuclear weapons using the plutonium from the nearby nuclear power plant. It’s an interesting place. The Munition sites are still visible on the ordinance survey maps were are using for the walk, stretching from here to Longtown in Cumbria.
We had our lunch in the museum cafe. No Porridge. The conditions for the second half of the days walk were improved by the fact there was a footway along the road most of the way. I arrived in Annan and met Bob at the supermarket. We walked down the main street but had to do without ice cream as all the ice cream machines seemed to be out of order. I had a strawberry tart instead and ate it under the gaze of the statue of Robert the Bruce on the Town Hall.

The last section of the walk today was on the Annandale Way along the river Annan. The river has been running high and some fields still had evidence of small local flooded sections. Bob met me at a wood yard at the junction with the road I will take tomorrow.

An unmetrical version of Psalm 18

God is my rock, rock, rock
And my castle.
God us my strength, strength, strength
I trust God:
My body armour and the source of life in me,
God is my high tower.

There are many high towers in the local landscape which were used for defense.
They crop up in Celtic spirituality as an image of the strong presence of God, as defender and refuge.

God defend us from all trials and troubles this night,
Grant us a quiet night and a peaceful end.

JAL 18.06.2019
Day 66 of the End to End, Rigg to near Milnfield.