From Tent to Castle: Memoir of a Year-Long Honeymoon

Setting off from Stockholm, Sweden on rebuilt one speed bicycles, Harley and Ulla embarked on an open-ended honeymoon with no fixed destination and equipped with a tent, a thin double sleeping bag, a tiny gasoline stove, $3000, and an old Underwood typewriter strapped on the front of Harley's bike. A compulsive writer, he worked on a novelette even while camping in England's persistent rain. After arriving in Britain, Ulla discovered she was pregnant. Tired of unrelenting rain, they advertised for a cheap place to spend the winter. They were offered the gatehouse to Borthwick Castle outside Edinburgh, Scotland for $25 a month by British author Theo Lang.Their life in the gatehouse of historic Borthwick Castle was far different from life in a small tent, living rough along the roads of Europe.Ulla was determined to learn English and studied while Harley wrote a novel down in one of the dungeon-like spaces once used for a cannon.