As you can see I lifted this photo from Google Earth.

The reason that I had to do that was I was driving my car and couldn't take the picture myself.

On Monday i took the kids on an expedition to Edinburgh Zoo. I drove along the A697 as it is my favourite driving road in the north east. Great scenery and enough straight road that even I will overtake. There is a spot though, if the weather is clear, where you can see the whole of the Cheviot hills stretched out in front of you. The view is from the Scottish side of the Tweed river so you are effectively looking at the top of the Pennines, considered England's "backbone".

I passed it in the opposite direction in the morning but the day was so clear I had to come back that way and risk getting caught in some Bank Holiday traffic on the way home. But the above view was exactly what we saw. In actual fact what we saw was slightly better as we had a lovely sunset picking out the hills and all their contours.

However as I was revelling in all this glory my son said
"S'alright but it's not the Alps!"