Low Newton & Holy Island - 16th Aug ‘24

Another perfect weather day - about 18 degrees and high cloud giving about 80% sun / 20% shade. 

Another lie in until 9.30. The plan was to go to Holy Island / Lindisfarne but by the time I checked the tide times on-line we were going to struggle to get to the causeway before it shut at 11.10. The teenager in the group was certainly not up for a rushed start to the day!

So, we had a leisurely start following the exact same routine as the previous 2 mornings. There is a lot to be said for routine/ process when you are sharing a small 3 berth caravan with 3 grandchildren!!

We had 3 or 4 hours to kill while we waited for the causeway to re-open at 3pm. We decided to leave the car at home and take a walk from the site over the fields to the Low Newton by the Sea and the pub on the beach.

Finn lead the way on the 2 mile hike down onto the coastal path and then along to the beautiful Ship Inn. We grabbed a snack and a drink as we played Room 101 - the Twinnies and Charlie have quite an eclectic selection of things they really don’t like and would like to banish to Room 101!!?

The sun was still shining so we walked the 25 yards to the beach. I got another swim in while the Twinnies played football. I stupidly thought the tide was going out so I left my tea shirt by the water line. It must have been coming in as, while I was in swimming, it got soaked! Meaning I had to walk back to Brunnehilda in a soaking wet tea shirt! The North Sea was still blimin’ cold but I’m sure it was a little warmer than Wednesday. It was very calm as well - like a mill pond!

As soon as we got back to the van (about a 40 minute walk) we jumped in the car and headed up the A1 to Holy Island - or as Harry kept calling it, Holly Island!

There was loads of space in the car park as loads of folks had been waiting for the causeway to reopen to get back to the mainland. We walked through the car free streets of the village and along the long path to the Castle. It would have been rude to have passed the ice cream van without purchasing one - so we didn’t!

Lindisfarne Castle did not dissapoint - wow! I’d been there so many times but always had the dog(s) so had never been inside. It’s a Tudor Castle remodelled in 1900 by Luychens into an impressive and totally unique family home and OMG, what a place. Such a wonderful atmosphere and the guides were all fantastic. A proper NT property- nearly as good as Canons Ashby!!

We tackled the long walk back to the car park after a brief rest up on the headland at the foot of the castle.

Charlie was desperate for some more fish and chips so we went home via Neptunes at Seahouses. And they were truly magnificent - again!

We took them back to Brunnehilda and ate them on the grass. The boys then played football before we played a few games whilst listening to the Man Utd commentary. They went to bed happy - their beloved Man U won 1-0! 

Early start for home in the morning. I would like to get on the road for 8! The Nintendo Switches and iPhones are all fully charged up and ready for the journey. How did we manage 6 hour journeys with kids before electronic devices??? That said, we won’t be leaving too early - Charlie is insisting on his shower first thing while the rest of his 3 travelling companions are now onto their 4th day without undertaking this particular activity!

The Twinnies and Charlie have been immaculately behaved from start to finish. No agro, no dissent and very little arguments. 

So ends another wonderful trip to one of my favourite places on Earth - the Northumberland coast - with my most favourite people on Earth. I’ve already booked the next one - in October, just a bit more than 2 months away.

Hopefully this will be a happy and important milestone for me - as I won’t be on my own! And I don’t mean grandsons or Tilly! As a lot of folks will already know … I’ve been “seeing” someone for the last 3 months and I’m really excited about sharing my love of this beautiful part of the world with her. 

Alnwick Castle - 15th Aug ‘24

After a glorious weather day yesterday we paid the price today. Raining all morning, grey and cool all afternoon and then a beautiful sunny evening from about 6pm. 

We chilled in Brunnehilda for a couple of hours late afternoon/ early evening before the sun drew us out to the local beach - Dunstan Steads - for a game of foot golf. To avoid any Twinnie incidents we played doubles! I’m turning over a new leaf - no, I’m not letting my grandsons beat me but I am resisting gloating / boasting about my glorious victories!! 😉

At 7.30 pm it was as warm as it’s been all day. The forecast bodes well for a good day tomorrow. 

The rain this morning meant we had a very leisurely and relaxed am. We lied in until well gone 10 - the result of another late night blogging / watching DVDs. The teenage shower went well (again!). Charlie and I had eggs and bacon the boys had cereal / toast. Charlie is like his Grandma, he likes his bacon crispy and black with all the meat flavour burnt out of it!!

By 1.30 we were parking up in Alnwick Castle car park. The lousy weather had driven all the tourists from the beach / coastline, in land to the quant town of Alnwick and its impressive castle. It was very busy and we were lucky to get a car parking place!

The Twinnies were a little disappointed. Someone had told them that the Harry Potter films were shot here. Well they were, but only a couple of specific (Quidditch based) scenes. 

We had a good look round. It’s all very grand / pompous compared to my beautiful Canons Ashby. Finners and I went on the children friendly guided tour - it was very good. Harry and Charlie didn’t want to partake (probably a little too grown up to partake?!). 

We had some chips and churros (now there’s a healthy balanced diet?!) from the cafe before heading back to the car. We then spent a bit of time looking round Alnwick for DVDs and a newly launched football sticker album. We were unsuccessful with both!

Pizza and Lasagne, courtesy of Mr Sainsbury, for tea and then more DVD and blogging to end the day. 

I kid myself that I manage the grandkids better now than I did before. Of course I miss doubling up with Kim on the duties and the fun but I actually don’t think it’s that I’m getting better on my own, rather that they’re getting older and easier to herd / manage / persuade.

I’ve missed Kim loads today. Spending holiday time with the boys always does that but then factor in the rubbish weather, which gives much more time for thinking and reflecting ….. 

Bamburgh - 14th Aug ‘24

I realised today that a day in Northumberland with the Twinnies (and Charlie) is very different to a day with Tilly the dog!!

No debate with Tilly about what to do - although to be fair, the boys accepted the suggested days activities without a hint of decent!

After breakfast we headed out to Seahouses. After filling up with petrol we parked on the sea road, just outside the village, and walked over the dunes to the beach. 

Another difference was noticeable here - Tilly and I would have enjoyed a 3 mile walk along the beautiful beach to Bamburgh. The boys weren’t up for that but wanted to spend some time messing about on the sand / dunes before getting in the car and driving to Bamburgh.

Charlie went on his phone, the Twinnies chased around in the sea and on the sand and I went in for a swim.

Gee, I forgot how cold the North Sea is. Normally when you get in you get acclimatised relatively quickly and your body warms up. Not in the North Sea, I remained freezing for the whole 10 mins I was in!

The beach was busier than I’d seen it before but still very sparsely populated considering it was a sunny day in the middle of the school holidays. 

After the 45 mins on the beach, we drove on to the car park just outside Bamburgh. It was quite a long walk over the dunes and then a short walk along the beach before the climb back over the dunes and upto the castle entrance. 

We paid our entry and had a lovely couple of hours. Walking round the site, playing games on the grass, visiting the cafe and then a tour of the inside of the castle.

Another difference - dogs weren’t allowed into the castle. A visit to the cafe is less stressful with Tilly though. Harry wanted a ham sandwich. We got a round of ham and mustard. After I spent 10 mins scraping every grain of mustard off the sandwich, Harry refused to eat it saying he could still smell the mustard on the ham!!!

The visit was great fun though leaving us with another trek over the dunes to get back to the car park. Then onto Seahouses to buy fish and chips from my fave restaurant-The Neptune. 

It didn’t disappoint. We took the grub home to Brunnehilda and ate it alfresco on the grass. Gee it was good - 4 very empty / clean plates.

After a bit of a rest we headed to our local beach at Dunstan Steads for a game of football golf. After that we went back to Brunnehilda for a games tournament - Cluster / Penalty Shoot Out / Sevens / Itchy Feet. Now what sort of grandad would I be if I won both the beach golf and the tournament? What sort of monster would beat his 3 grandsons and then boast about it in a blog? Well, I bloody well did - and enjoyed every moment!

The other main difference between Twinnies and Tilly are the questions! Not too many from Tilly but so so many from the 9 year olds. A lot of them very obscure and left field! Being deaf (as I am) you try and predict questions - that’s not something you can do with Twinnies as they don’t seem to follow any sort of logical thinking and can be as random as they are obscure!

The good news - the teenage shower went well. Charlie managed on the 3 minutes of hot water with no complaints. He also cooked himself some egg and bacon for breakfast - very impressed.

Less so with the Twinnies! I decided, being that they are nearly 10 years old, it was time they learnt to butter their own bloody toast. 25 years ad a trainer didn’t equip me for this challenge!! After a lot of watch and try, they did eventually butter and jam/ Bovril their toast - although they did go through half a slab of butter!

Another DVD after games night. It’s going to rain tomorrow! 

Northumberland with the Boys - 13th Aug ‘24

Embleton again - but this time with my 3 grandsons rather than Tilly. 

I was a little bit apprehensive about this one - not least that we are going to my normal CL with no washing / showering facilities! Not sure how the 16 year old Charlie will cope with the 2 minute maximum shower that Brunnehilda will allow him!!

I was also a wee bit apprehensive about the 6 hour journey. I shouldn’t have been as the 3 of them were perfectly behaved. And unlike with my canine companion, I didn’t have to take them for a walk when we stopped at Wetherby. They cost a lot more to feed though than Tilly would have done. 

We arrived at Wetherby (half way) after a 10.45am start from Welton Lodge Farm. It was a good run with just a short hold up going through thy roadworks at Newcastle.

The weather got progressively colder and wetter as we pressed northwards. The temperature dropped by 8 degrees from getting on the M1 at Crick to getting off the A1(M) 5.5 hours later. The rain also kicked in as we drove past Scotch Corner. 

Thankfully the rain stopped for the set up. I backed on without the need for the motor mover and was all set up in about 30 mins while the boys played football. I felt like a real proper alpha male!! Not sure if I had an audience for this impressive display but there are 2 vans on site. Surprisingly for summer holidays, there are 2 spaces empty.

We headed out to the beach at Embleton Bay. Paddling, football and playing in sand was fun in the evening sunshine.

We walked towards Dunstanburgh Castle and then back to the car over the golf course. As always up here, there were very few people to spoil our fun our crowd us during our walk.

Back home to Brunnehilda for tea (snacks) and some games before watching Hot Fuzz in bed and getting a relatively early night. 

The Harbottle Hills - 30th Mar ‘24

In my view, the clocks going forward is the end of winter. They go forward tonight and I’m up early tomorrow morning heading for home. So it’s Spring and I’m sprung!

When I woke up this morning the radio was once more full of news of busy busy transport systems and places! Bank holiday Easter Saturday is apparently the worst! Someone needs to tell the good folks of Northumberland this because today, once again, was a day of very few people out and about and even fewer cars! 

Today could have been another walking disaster but I think I rescued it into quite a nice day. I spent a long time considering my walking options over my breakfast bacon bagel! Although I love a beach walk, I wanted to go somewhere new and I’ve walked all the beaches from Bamburgh to Amble! I did consider Holy Island but the threatened rampaging gangs of tourists put me off. I decided I would head inland to the Cheviots and get an evening beach walk on the way home. 

I consulted the OS App once more - after Thursday’s disaster I decided to give it one more chance. I selected a random route that seemed to have lots of interesting and diverse things to see and terrain to walk. My decision was confirmed as a good one when I noticed there was an Old Manse on the route. Little did I know that I had picked another duff route. Not due to “no dogs” this time but due to seasonal and meteorological factors! More later.

We headed out to a place called Holystone - the other side of the very pretty little town of Rothbury. I had visited Rothbury briefly last summer. What I didn’t know then, that I know now, is that Rothbury was famous for being the place that Raoul Moat was finally cornered and killed by the police!

I parked up in a Forestry Commission car park and we headed out. 

The first part of the walk was around the edge of Harbottle Wood. This was active forestry land and, it turns out an MOD practice ground as well. The walking was made particularly difficult with regular boggy sections of the path to slosh through

Then it was the pleasure of a dry walk along the road to the little village of Harbottle. There was a pub but no pub garden so I pressed on through the village and onto the site of Harbottle Castle.

Rather over officiously there was a dogs on lead rule. With 2 dogs this would have been a disaster but with a well behaved Tilly it was fine. We had snacks and a drink amongst the ruins. Like all the other castles round here, it was built by the English then briefly taken over by the Scot’s (by Robert the Bruce no less!!) before going back to the English. Its claim to fame was its was where Henry VIIIs sister, Margaret, was banished after the death of her first husband - King James IV of Scotland. 

During this rest I decided to cut out a 4 mile section of the walk up to Drake Rock. From where I was standing it looked a fairly steep ascent and wooded (therefore muddy) descent and I didn’t want to mess my foot up for a beach walk later. 

At the castle I met 2 couples - these were to be the only walkers I saw during my 3 hour (6 mile) hike - bloody busy Bank Holidays!! I walked back through the village and over a foot bridge to cross the river Coquet (the same river that runs through Warkworth).

There was then a long footpath / Bridleway that ran close to the river back towards Sharperton. On the map the bridleway seemed to cross the river but there wasn’t a bridge shown. I started to have my doubts but the only alternatives were road based and long!

So it was no great surprise when I got to the River Coquet again and was faced with the reality of my situation. The river could i’m sure be carefully crossed in the summer but this was late March after record rainfall in Feb and March! This picture shows the depressing site I faced.

I slumped down on the bank and considered my options. I smiled to myself to imagine the feedback Kim would be giving me at this stage. The alternative route was 3/4 mile back down the Bridleway (whence I came!) and then 1.5 miles on country lanes to get me to about 200 yds from the other side of the river! If Kim had been with me that would have been the chosen option. But she wasn’t and I really couldn’t face it. So ….. I took my shoes off and rolled up my trousers over my knees.

I thought it would be no more than 18 inches deep. I was wrong, at its worst it got well over my knees meaning my trousers were soaked. My stick was invaluable to help me across. It was made harder as I had to drag Tilly across as she wasn’t going anywhere voluntarily. It turns out she had to swim the last 5 yards. I think that’s the first time she’s ever swum!!

Goodness I was pleased to get my self onto the opposite bank. The feeling of satisfaction of a problem solved was immense. For several minutes I just laid on the bank with my wet trousers and bemused collie, in a zen like state of 

satisfaction. I’d been so focussed on getting across I hadn’t registered immediately how bloody cold it was!

The next part of the walk was lovely. Not sure if I was still in a state of euphoria from my river crossing or what but we crossed fields of sheep, then horses and then cows. Tilly was perfectly behaved on the lead. 

Then the best bit of the walk. Just as we were approaching our starting village of Holystone we literally stumbled across a little oasis of calm and beauty.

Lady’s Well was a tiny National Trust site. Amongst all the wet and rugged nature this little garden was so out of place. It turns out that in medieval times there was an Augustine Priory here. This was the well that the canonesses used and still feeds the village today. 

Tilly and I sat down for 10 minutes in a this beautiful place in a contemplative mood - well I was, I’m not sure about her?! I’m not religious but religious places like this have always been good for my sole. As usual my reflections were mainly about Kim. But I’m happy to report I left feeling better about life and concluded that this place I had stumbled across had some sort of mystical aura. Yeh, crazy I know!

The car was only another 15 minutes walk away. I lifted Tilly on board - she was too wet and knackered to jump up herself - and we headed back to Alnwick. I wanted to go in Barters Books (supposed to be one of the biggest 2nd hand book shops in the country) while I had the chance.

It didn’t dissapoint! I bought 2 books - one on body language and the other Tom Browns schooldays (set at Rugby School - my current employer!).

We headed for Dunstan Steads for one final look at the sea. The tide was right in so we walked towards Dunstanburgh Castle on the path across the sand dunes and then back on the edge of the golf course to the car. 

I fancied a pint. The normal village pub I go to was too busy so I went to newly re-opened Blue Bell. A really friendly landlord and good beer but the only food they had on was fish and chips. It was very average - certainly compared to the wonderful fish from Neptunes at Seahouses!

Back to Brunnehilda for more Cadburys chocolate, strawberry trifle and a DVD. This time, the Brazilian film, City of God. It was excellent - albeit very long!

Blogging in bed and then planning my getaway tomorrow. It’s been a splendid 3 days. I think each day has got better and the weather has been amazing. The next time I’m back here will be in August with my grandsons!! My favourite place with my favourite people - can’t wait!