From a five-span stone bridge in Peebles, I watched the River Tweed flow through this market town, lively with shoppers and al fresco coffee drinkers enjoying a hot summer’s day. Touring less than 25 miles south of the capital city of Edinburgh, the River Tweed, one of Britain’s great salmon rivers, was never far from sight, whether from a waterside town or an elevated vantage point, such as Scott’s View. From this beauty spot, accessible from a layby signposted off the A68 east of Melrose, the Tweed’s silvery course threaded through a vista of upright pines and buttercup-strewn fields. The Eildon Hills rose in the distance under an almost cloudless sky. The roads, incidentally, hemmed with wild rose, were almost deserted. Smugly, I thought of heaving summertime traffic in the south of England.