Craster

We were astonished when we went to Craster at the amount of people there.   For such a small fishing village, it was heaving!  As we walked through the village though, it was apparent how many of the houses are now holiday homes, so perhaps we shouldn't have been quite as surprised.  We parked up at the top of the village by the tourist information office and walked out towards the sea and along the clifftop mile to Dunstanburgh Castle.  We did wonder if we were on some weird OAP pilgrimage to the castle!  Quite bizarre!

The land hereabouts is owned by the National Trust and is grazed by both sheep and cows, so there were plenty of notices to keep dogs on leads. Given the amount of poo about, I would not have wanted Finn off the lead anyway, given his propensity for rolling in it!  

Although a cold day, it was dry and we really wanted to sit outside again if we could - we were hurtling towards the end of our holiday and wanted to eke out every last moment of it, so sitting outside for lunch was high on the list of things still to do.  With that in mind, we found a pub with a garden and views over the harbour, where we could watch the boats coming in with the daily catch. 

We made very short work of our lunch - sandwiches with locally caught salmon (and dill - which doesn't need any catching at all!) and smoked mackerel pate and toast.  And chips cooked in beef dripping.  It was just the best meal of the holiday, in my opinion, so simple.  But sitting outside with those views, was just magical.  

Rothbury

Rothbury is another village that I had wanted to visit for a while - but the only time I'd been in the area was when Finn and I were walking the Pennine Way and it's just not feasible to go and look round some villages when you have the most anxious dog in the world refusing to be tied up outside shops!   At least with two of you and two dogs, one of you can stand outside with Finn and Sid while the other goes and has a little mooch.

The weather had been getting progressively worse during our holiday and we weren't exactly running out of places to visit, but the day we went to Rothbury was definitely not a day that we wanted to be standing on an exposed stretch of beach!   Blimey, it was a bit grim!   So, instead, we went out for a drive to see where we'd end up.  

Rothbury lived up to its promise - we parked a little way out of town and walked along the river to give the boys a bit of exercise and had a very nice lunch in one of the high street's pubs.   We had intended to sit outside in the garden, but it was a little damp for that!   Very interesting little place and I'm glad I finally got to see it.

Northumberlandia

We found out about Northumberlandia by accident - it had been featured on BBC Breakfast News about a year ago and I was determined then that I wanted to go and see her one day.   She is built on the site of an old quarry and was constructed from 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil.  She is seven times the size of a football pitch and there are four miles of paths up and down and around her.  She's now managed by the Land Trust in conjunction with other partners, including various wildlife trusts.  Them's the facts.  All very worthy and a fabulous use of an old quarry, generating income to carry on with the cause.  

However, what we weren't prepared for was how much we laughed as we walked round her.  She instils a tremendous sense of the ridiculous and naughtiness and we loved her so much, that we went and visited her twice!  

Obviously we had enormous fun, standing on her magnificent bosoms and waving to each other from our respective peaks.   I only wish mine were as magnificent, but I think she's had a lot of work done!  

While on top of her head, a couple of old quarrymen and their wives climbed up and we listened while they talked about how the site is mined.   On our second visit, we stood on her head for ages and watched all the trucks, trying to work out the systems they used to get the coal out.   Fascinating.  

We even had a mini earthquake.   Well, I still maintain it was an earthquake.  Amanda is more of the opinion that a controlled explosion had been set off underground to loosen up some more coal.   I love living on Planet Susan!

Of course, we could only remain relatively sensible for so long before we started on the photo opportunities - there weren't too many people around but those that were at the site seemed up to naughtiness themselves so I don't think we caused too much of a stir!

The weather wasn't great on either of the days that we went but it really didn't stop us larking about, lying in the grass or on benches.  The funniest comment was back at the car when Amanda suddenly announced she was "damp in the seating area"!   A fab place to visit - well worth a jaunt out there.   And I'm glad we saw it when it was relatively quiet - they are currently in the process of constructing a visitor centre and tea rooms, so I expect they're anticipating a lot more visitors once word gets out. 

Warkworth

From our cottage, it was a ten minute drive to Warkworth - a beautiful little village we had passed through on our holiday back in 2007, but had not had the time to visit properly.   Because we drove through Warkworth pretty much every day this holiday, we had plenty of opportunities to visit this time.  In fact, on only day two, we found a dog friendly pub - while it was still warm enough to sit outside in the beer garden - the weather deteriorated over the course of the following ten days!  

We popped back to Warkworth a couple of times - once for a craft fair, and once to replenish fruit wine supplies!   The village store sold everything - including the fruit wine, mead, knitting magazines and postcards - all we needed really! 

On one of our trips into Warkworth, I went to visit St Lawrence's Church - a lovely community church with a really lovely feel.  The flower ladies were getting the church ready for a funeral the next day - normally a sombre occasion - but they were getting in a bit of a tizzy as they had "an embarrassment of flowers".  Normally they are scrabbling around to make their arrangements, but they'd got so many flowers for this particular lady, that they didn't know what to do with them all!  How lovely.

Amble

Amble was the nearest town - of any size - to where our cottage was and, consequently, we had to drive past it everywhere we went!   The lovely lady we had chatted to earlier in the holiday had told us that we really HAD to try the ice cream parlour and the chippie in Amble -and we did go and have our fish and chips there.  Sitting in the car, looking at the boats.  Boat trips run from the harbour, but pretty much every time we popped into the town, the weather was a bit grim. 

Amble High Street is a funny old affair - lots of quite old fashioned shops, including a rather lovely wool shop that we really couldn't pass by without a little browse.  Oh, and a purchase of course!

Lindisfarne

Our jaunt to Lindisfarne was dependant on two things - the weather and the tide.   Out of our holiday, we had two days that we could have driven over to Holy Island but, when the first day came around, we decided that the weather had beaten us.  We're not often to be put off, but, crikey, was it grim!   It wasn't too much better the second day, but we decided to chance it anyway.   It was jolly cold on the day and, sadly, I didn't get to go to the priory because we were running out of time before the tides would cut us off again.  I have been to the priory before and know that I'll go back again, so it wasn't the end of the world. 

We had a good walk out to the castle and the beach, but, if anything, it was even more blowy there!   The lovely National Trust lady took some photos of us - I think she was just keen to get away from the huge pile of compost she was turning - urgh!  

I had to have all my wits about me to make sure Finn didn't roll in any sheep poo - stupid dog!   We got so cold that we decided to head back into the village to find a coffee and, luckily, found a lovely sheltered tea garden for lunch.

So, no visit to Lindisfarne Priory this time, but we did find St Aidan's Winery, which we didn't manage to find the last time we were up here.   As I bought rather a lot more than I'd anticipated - seven bottles of fruit wine and mead! - we had no choice then but to get back to the car as I was struggling to carry it all!   (Quite a lot of the bottles were finished during the course of the holiday and I came back to Norwich with only three bottles.  Amanda had taken a few bottles of wine for the holiday and our lovely landlords had left us a bottle too.   I'm wondering if they thought we were alcoholics, with the amount of bottles we left out by the recycling bins - ah, who cares? It was a holiday after all!)