Blogs from Northumberland, England, United Kingdom, Europe

We left Alston in Cumbria and crossed into Northumberland. It was a short drive to Haltwhistle, following the route of the River South Tyne. You automatically think and associate Newcastle as being on the River Tyne, but the two tributaries North and South never seem to get a mention or an acknowledgement of their existence. Haltwhistle, a small market town of about 4,000 people on the main East / West route between Carlisle and Newcastle, has a similarly little known claim to fame. Haltwhistle is the Centre of Britain or at least, so it claims. There are others with a similar claim to the geographical centre and Haltwhistle conveniently disregards measurements to Shetland and settles at Orkney as the most northerly point. Claim or counter claim aside, Haltwhistle has branded itself. We positioned our Vera next ... read more

Oh, no, we wet the bed! So, our teeny, tiny room has a teeny, tiny skylight window which we have been opening as wide as we can to try to let some air into our stuffy, windowless room. We had it open all night without any problem and headed down to breakfast leaving it open. While we were at breakfast, we were looking out the window at the deteriorating weather bemoaning the fact that it looked like we would be wearing our raincoats again when we headed out. We finished breakfast and I headed up to our room while Bernie stayed behind to settle up our bill. I walked into the room and straight away I could hear it … drip, drip, drip. What’s dripping? OMG, the rain is coming in the skylight window and dripping ... read more

This morning Kath made a cooked breakfast for us all. We kept asking what we could do to help, but she insisted that she had it all under control. She did at least let Bernie juice the oranges. While we were waiting for breakfast we tried to share as many tips as we could think of about Lisbon, Sintra and Porto as Robin and Sandra are off to Portugal on Monday. They are doing a tour but are travelling to Sintra independently and may have some free time in Lisbon and Porto. Hopefully we have given them some information that may prove useful to them. After breakfast we packed out bags to head off to Northumberland for a few days. We are trying to wring the last little bit out of our holiday before we fly ... read more

Oops. Forgot to do the blog last night! Sorry about that. All our plans went out the window when we woke to find the village covered in snow. Over breakfast we reworked the day’s plans to exclude any journeys on small roads, as we figure the main roads would be safer. This showed up to be true as we saw where a head-on accident had just happened on our way out of town. We continued a little ways further but the car didn’t feel very secure in the slush. Tom was ever mindful that I may have to forgo some of my people’s villages if we don’t stick to my ultra-researched jam-packed itinerary, (we don’t plan to ever return to Britain) but I want to walk in their footsteps, not meet them in heaven. And I ... read more

Wow - what a day we had today! Mind you, we didn’t sleep too well on this heavenly mattress. It could’ve been something to do with the nightclub across the road disgorging its drunk patients at 2am. We had thought the freebie earplugs were cute - we were on the 5th floor! Anyway! Tom went off and got us a Scottish breakfast from the same Maccas he used to go to a few years back, last time we were in Edinburgh, about 2018 or 2019. They now offer everything in vegan and vegetarian as well as the usual. And they do porridge! It was awesome! After brekkie we wandered down the hill of the Royal Mile to Canongate Kirk, where Tom’s 3 greats grandparents were buried along with several other family members. It was easy enough ... read more

Hi everyone again We arrived at Seahouses not far from border of Scotland,on the Northumberland coast.we visited Bamburgh Castle not far from where we are staying. From Anglo Saxon citadel to impenetrable Norman stronghold,Bamburgh castle was home to the Kings of Northumbria. The first castle to fall to canon fire in the wars of the roses. We all had an amazing day it’s a stunning castle. Last night Kevin and I went on evening cruise to the Farne islands not far from where we are in Seahouses. The Farne islands are a national nature reserve home to an internationally important breeding colony of a thousands of sea birds and Grey seals. On the way home we saw a minky whale,and dozens of dolphins it was amazing. Today we went to Holy Ilsand also called Lindisfarne is ... read more