Moffat

RETURN TO THE GOOD SOUP GUIDE
A - Z

Moffat is very much a traveller's town, a place to hole up in for a day or two before moving on somewhere new. It sits in the middle of a grand long-distance footpath - The Southern Upland Way - and so is ideally situated as either a place to stock up on provisions or to either start or finish one half of the walk. For The Southern Upland Way is long (about 212 miles, if my memory serves me well), and unlike other such walks you will not be bumping into other walkers at every turn of a corner. In places it is wild and remote and you may go several days without either seeing a shop or another human being. Just sheep, lots of sheep, and mountains and lochs.
I have fond memories of leaving Moffat many years ago to embark on just such a walk. Two minutes out of the town and I rather foolishly decided to cross over a wooden fence lined with a single strand of barbed wire at the top. Well, the inevitable happened; I slipped, and ultimately set off at the start of my great adventure sporting torn trousers and a bloody gash on my bottom.
And then, somewhere near Traquair, I also recall sitting in a soft armchair in front of a warm peat fire in a farm, quietly tingling with contentment while the woman of the house washed my socks, stuffed my wet boots with newspaper, and sowed up the rip in my trousers. Now that's customer care.