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!
2 comments:
Looks like you had a lovely holiday! What were you doing to create the incredibly tall shadow, did you stand on top of each other? The Harry Potter Castle looked fun, as did the big birds :o)
Did you have a cane inside the desk Mum?
Can't resist a slide Dad ;o)
Love Hazel
Hi Hazel
I am glad you liked the photos.
The tall shadow was just Dad, with me stood behind him with my arms out, it was late evening and the shadows do get longer then.
Of course there was a cane in the desk! There were ladies dressed as Edwardian school teachers brandishing the canes around the school room terrorising children who left the slates out of the slots in the desks. They used to say 'spare the rod and spoil the child'.
The birds were cute and I was pleased to say they did not land on people's heads.
The Angel of the North has a lot of symbolism attached to it, I can't remember it all but it was signifying something good coming out of a disused mine shaft - I'll try and look it up on one of my photos and let you know. I think it is the tallest Angel in the world, but again I'd have to check that.
Love Mum xxxxxxxx
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