Dumfries

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Robert Burns... sigh. A man's a man for all that. You know, I believe I may have said this before, but there are some places where the most tenuous link with Burns is dusted with the magic tinkerings of commercialism and changed from a mole-hill into a mountain. You can almost sense the desperation in the minds of tourist industry wallahs as they sit around a table trying hard to come up with some new Experience for the travelling paying punters.
But while some places might boast an overnight stay by the bard, and even a house in which he spent some considerable time, Dumfries is unique in that it boasts TWO houses in which he once lived. And as if that's not enough, in one of those humble houses Robert Burns died, at the age of just thirty-seven.
His spirit permeates the town with such a strong presence that it is at times difficult to breathe, and one may feel a strong desire to come up for air. One cannot, it seems, turn a corner without coming face to face with either the bard himself or the masks of his cronies proudly guarding the entrance to yet another pub gone bust. Alas and alack, Souter Johnnie.
But it is in the graveyard in which his mausoleum is housed that one truly gets a feel for the man. For in the ground around his proud white resting-place lie those with whom he engaged in conversation, shared a joke and a drink, and ultimately said goodbye.