Thursday 24 February 2022

A bit of everyday ordinary

Hi there everyone 😀

It's been a funny old day here. This was how today's weather was looking when I had a quick look yesterday ...
I have to say ... I was quite excited and woke up expecting to see a bit of a white out ... what I actually got was this ...

It really did feel as though Spring could be in the air ... especially when looking at the colour in the tiny strip of our front garden ...
I was off to the hairdressers for a long overdue cut and colour ... the grey was getting a bit out of hand. At least I wouldn't be coming out to slip and slide my way back up the road, having to protect my new 'do' from the elements.

Whilst I was sat in the hair dressers we were all chatting, as us ladies do, and the lady sat in the next chair asked me if I used to work in a certain building society in our town. I said yes I did ... but nigh on 40 years ago. I was surprised, to say the least, when she said ... yes, she remembered me working in there. I kind of think it was a good thing ... when I told a friend she said I must have retained my 'youthful good looks' ... not too sure about that, but it's a nice thought 😜

On another note ... I think it's the first time my hairdresser has actually seen the whole of my face, which was a very strange feeling. Just in case you're wondering why ... it's because I had to find a new hairdresser after the first lockdown as the place I'd been going to for years closed down. Today was the first time that I'd not worn a mask for the whole of my visit.

Anyway, out of the hairdressers and I treated Martin and I to a caramel doughnut from Birds ... my absolute favourite ... before heading for home.

The weather forecast had changed a bit ... only light snow showers forecast now, but still no sign of them. We were sat at the dining room table enjoying our treats when it felt as though someone had switched off the lights ...

I had to make a mad dash back in as we had a pretty heavy hailstorm and I thought that was it ... set in for the afternoon, but that was not the case. Within five minutes it was blue skies and sunshine again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon just messing about on the computer. I've set myself a bit of a goal to sort out my digital photos and to get to grips with 'The Cloud' ... it's a challenge 😀

I seem to have managed to save the photos on my iPad and new phone onto the cloud, but they are in a bit of a chaotic mess, which led me to looking at the thousands of photos that I have and question really as to whether I want to keep them or not. I think that's one of the problems of blogging ... you just never know when a random photo of a cheesecake or a pretty flower may come in handy, which leads, in my case, to some serious photo hoarding. I think I will be losing a fair few hours before I come up with a nice tidy and organised system that works for me 😕

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Friday 18 February 2022

Exploring :: Northumberland #4 ... Bamburgh

Hi there again everyone 😀 

It’s funny I should be writing this post today … as I am tucked up at home, waiting for the onslaught of Storm Eunice, which is wreaking havoc around the country but seems to be a bit of a damp squib for us so far.

We are still in Northumberland for today's post ... it was Tuesday and Storm Barra was due to hit us at about 1pm, and there were more pretty strong winds forecast.

We decided to make the short drive to Bamburgh for a walk on the beach and round the castle ... aiming to head back for the comfort of Cuthbert's before the weather turned. We drove past the castle and through the village before taking a narrow lane on the right, which took us down to a car park just off the beach, giving us this view of the castle ...

We just had to literally nip through the dunes and we were on the beach ...
It was the perfect spot for the day's first holiday selfie, with the boys taking up their usual position at the rear. This is definitely one of my all time favourites ...
Once on the beach the views in all directions were pretty breathtaking ...
The beach at Bamburgh is vast ...
It was bleak, it was cold, it was windy and it was beautiful ... it was lovely to be out ...


Did I say it was windy? 
Once level with the castle we opted for the steep path up through the dunes ... which definitely got the hearts pumping ...
... but gave us some spectacular views back across the bay ...




We were definitely ready for a bit of a breather when we made it up to the castle ...


As we rounded the castle to begin to head back down and into the village we were faced with a cherry picker doing some repair work on the side of the castle, following Storm Arwen. For one awful minute I thought we were going to be told we couldn't go through that way and would have to retrace our steps. I was more than ready to play the 'my husband's on crutches' card, but there was no need. It was time for them to pack up anyway, as Barra was literally just around the corner.

We made our way back down the castle drive ...

... and round the side ... heading back for the beach ...


We actually ended up making our way back partly through the dunes ...



We ended up timing it perfectly. We'd had a lovely walk on the beach and up and round the castle. We got back to Cuthbert's just before Storm Barra hit and spent the afternoon sitting watching and listening to the storm … keeping everything crossed that the winds wouldn’t cause any more damage.

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Tuesday 15 February 2022

Exploring :: Northumberland #3 ... Alnwick Tree House & The Garden Winter Light Trail

Hi there everyone 😀

We are back to our big day out in Northumberland for today's post. 

Continuing with our Monday road trip ... having already taken in Beadnell, Craster and Alnmouth ... we were finally at our last stop in Alnwick.

We were booked in to eat at The Tree House and then we had tickets for the Alnwick Garden Winter Light Trail and we were all really excited. Martin and I had been to The Tree House before, but that didn't make it any less special and for Lesley and Tom it was all new ...

It just looked totally magical ...
The fairy lights were just starting to twinkle as we made our way along the wooden walkway to the restaurant ...
Once inside it was even prettier ... with lots of wood, plenty of twinkling lights and a roaring log fire ... it was also lovely and quiet ...

We had a lovely meal and by the time we were ready to leave to head to the garden it was properly dark and even more twinkly ...



It was only a short walk to the entrance of the garden and we were soon in and ready for our last adventure of what had been a lovely day ...
The light trail was really well laid out, with no real clue as to what would be coming next so there was a real sense of anticipation as to what we might find around the next corner ...
... and there were certainly plenty of oohs and ahhhs going on ...

Through our meanderings through the bamboo and tree lined paths we ended up in the walled garden ...

... before heading down to the sycamore tree ... which really reminded me of the tree of life in Avatar ...
We headed back up to the top of the garden ...
... before making our way down through the cherry trees ...
...which was hard going on the creaky knees, but at least we got to have a sit down at the bottom ...
We were on the home straight now ...
There was the just grand finale to go ... which did not disappoint ...


Oh ... I beg your pardon ... there was just one more thing 😂😂😂
We were so lucky to get to see the gardens ... when we'd tried to book on line there were no tickets available, but when we called about something else, the kind lady managed to squeeze us in. If we'd left it until the following day we would have been out of luck as the gardens had to close as a result of Storm Barra heading in.

What a day we'd had ... we were all shattered and just about ready to head back to Cuthbert's cottage for the rest of the evening, but we did make just one more stop on the way.

It was a lovely clear night so we pulled in alongside the road in Seahouses, by the coast, for a spot of stargazing and whilst there was plenty to see it wasn't really that photographable ... but those dark clear skies really do show how many stars there are actually up there.

We finally headed back to the comfort of Cuthbert's Cottage to see what Storm Barra would have in store for us on Tuesday 😀

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