Travels with Brunnehilda: Seahouses & Berwick

A good day. I planned a beach walk, a swim, fish and chips and a trip to Berwick. And that’s exactly what I got.

Another really nice day. Sunny from waking up in the morning to getting back to Brunnehilda at 5pm - apart from a 15 minute heavy shower (which I got caught in!).

After bacon bagels we headed to Bamburgh. I parked up at the side of the main road about 1 mile short of the village - thereby avoiding parking costs and reducing my walk into and back from Seahouses by a couple of miles. The beach walk was 3 miles in and 3 miles back.

The tide was out so Tilly had lots of space to enjoy herself and, more importantly, I could get far enough away from my fellow beach walkers to have a swim.

I kept finding excuses not to do it until I found the perfect place. Rocks to put my clothes on, a nice sandy spot to walk out on and 100 yards from the nearest person. It was cold but probably no worse than the outdoor pool I swam in in Shrewsbury last week. I reckon about 10 degrees?

It was bracing! I probably only swam for about 5 minutes - that was enough! Tilly was getting a little stressed - it was like a small cove so she could run out on the rocks alongside me manically yelping!

It’s a gorgeous feeling when you get out! It was quite rough so hard to get a proper swim in. I was glad I did it though and headed off to get my prize - fish and chips from the wonderful Neptune fish restaurant in Seahouses.

There was a 15 minute queue but then it was BH Friday! The village was very busy with people fighting for parking spots. I was glad I had walked in!

I headed off to the rocks to find a secluded place to have my fish, chips and curry sauce. I shared it with Tilly of course - although she was much fonder of the fish than the chips - as indeed I was so that was a shame for Tilly!!

We walked back along the beach and reached the car at about 2pm.

Berwick was about a 40 minute, 25 mile journey up the A1. Amazingly, I’ve never been before! Gone over the bridge(s) in both a car and a train but never visited.

What a smashing place. So many old buildings and a wall that goes all the way around the ancient town - 1.3 miles apparently. There was so much history and they did it very well with lots of information notices.

We had a nice walk ending up at an English Heritage place - old barracks and museum. It wasn’t busy - just Tilly and I and a Japanese couple. The 2 guys on duty were fabulous. One of them used to live in Kettering and knew Canons Ashby. The other was good fun, very knowledgeable and insisted on feeding Tilly treats.

I was busting for a wee and unfortunately didn’t have the bladder control to linger! It was an interesting 45 minutes though and dogs were welcome everywhere. When I left the Barracks the heavens opened and we got soaked walking back to the car.

I stopped off at an Asda on the way out to buy a couple of DVDs. I ended up nearly having an incident in the car park. Someone had parked a good 10 cms over the line and into my parking space. I reversed in but was sticking out so far I had to back up very very close to the car behind. So close that the emergency brake came on. Unfortunately, I’d forgot I had my towbar still on and even more unfortunately, there was a guy sitting in the car behind! He realised he was well into my space so quickly reversed and got out of his car - as did I. There was no damage but I couldn’t help myself pointing out where my towbar was - 10 cms into my space! We left as friends!?!

Straight home down the A1. A nice Sainos fish pie while watching Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. A harmless little film but no Pulp Fiction!

More Brunnehilda decadence eating Cadburys chocolate and strawberry trifle in my underpants with the heating cranked up to high. Now there’s a site your brain will take some time to un-see!! The rain was coming down so hard it was impossible to hear the DVD - thank goodness for sub-titles! NB Just re-read this, it was me, not the strawberry trifle in my underpants.