Northumberland

Amanda and I are just back from two weeks in Northumberland - we stayed at a sweet little cottage - Shunting Cottage - at Acklington, a couple of miles from both Amble and Warkworth.   In fact, the cottage is so lovely that we have both said we'd definitely go back and we've talked the owners into letting it to us privately rather than go through the holiday company again.  And Mum and Dad have said they're going up too!   Acklington is so accessible for all the usual touristy places - but very quiet too.  Although the railway passed about a hundred yards from the cottage, the noise of trains was never overwhelming.  In fact, the most noise we heard was from the cattle auctions in the big building down the lane from us.   (I've always wanted to go to a cattle auction and thought I might go and take a look one day - but when I told Andy this on the 'phone, he told me to be careful in case they sold me!  Cheeky blighter!) 

It took us six hours to drive up and we had the usual nonsense conversations en route, culminating in the one as we came past Newcastle.   Amanda's little gem was, "is that the Tyne? ..... it's not very foggy".   That about sums up the rubbish we spouted for the whole holiday actually!

The cottage was all on one level and we each had our own bathroom, which was fab.  It was incredibly dog friendly, with an enclosed back garden, and the owners had three Dobermans of their own - Simon, Norman and Brian - and they made friends with Sid and Finn through the back fence.  

The kitchen was amazing and I've measured up and checked out the tiles and the cupboards, and I'm fairly sure I can do something similar with my own kitchen!   It was very well equipped so we had fresh coffee every day when we came back from our walks.  And we had to go and get cake especially, as we even had cake forks!

It didn't take us long to make the place our own actually - there were books and wool everywhere!   How we managed to get it all back in the car on the way home, I have no idea.