In the wettest summer in living memory we decided at the last minute to holiday for six days in the north of England. Neither of us had set foot in Northumbria before.
We crossed the Tyne without passports in search of Roman Britain.
The picture is of a Roman fort at Vindolanda - you can see the arrangements for hot-air under-floor heating.
On of the best remaining sections of Hadrian's wall is at Wall Town Crags.
We moved north via Wallington (house closed, but we saw a red squirrel in the woods and a nice walled garden)...
and Cragside (the first home in the UK to be lit by hydro-electric power, thanks to Lord Armstrong of Armstrong-Vickers)
We stayed close to Alnwick (pronounced Annick) and discovered this stretch of shore at Alnmouth - the tall shadow was made by the two of us in the late evening sunshine
From this base we visited Lindisfarne (Holy Island). We crossed the causeway 10 min after it was supposedly closed. I spent some time birdwatching until the castle opened. This is a view from Gertrude Jekyll's garden over to the castle.
The next day we took the Hogwarts tour round Alnwick castle
and Roger made friends with the birds of prey.
On the way home we stopped off to visit Beamish open-air museum - a whole town typical of the year 1913, moved to the site brick-by-brick. Mum found a schoolroom like the one she attended at Hatfield Peverel, and took the opportunity to sit at teacher's desk.
Our last visit was to the Angel of the North...
which is a great sculpture and you can get right up to it and touch her - or slide down her foot!
