Alnmouth 2017

Alnmouth is one of our favourite beaches so of course we had to visit, even though we only had four days to play with.

Looking back on this day, I'm surprised I've got any photos at all because my recollection is of a very brief - VERY brief - walk due to Finn's anxiety issues.  As he's getting older, he seems to be more worried by things that never seemed to bother him at all when he was younger - the vet and the behaviourist at the Dogs Trust explained to me that, as dogs get older, their senses become impaired.  As they lose their hearing and their sight, things can "surprise" them because they've had no lead up to whatever is about to happen.  On the day we went to Alnmouth, we'd barely been on the beach for five minutes when we heard either gun fire or bird scarers - difficult to say which - and that was the end of the walk for Finn - he ran off, back to the car park and refused to budge!

I have to say it was bloody cold though, so I was quite glad that our walk was curtailed - and we could sit in the warmth of the car and wait for Amanda and Sid.

I'm sure we'll be back again!

Newbiggin

In our quest to discover new places, instead of driving up the A1 to reach everywhere along the coast, we actually took the smaller coastal roads, which is why we ended up finding some new little gems which certainly require more exploration when we next go to Northumberland, as I'm sure we will.

Newbiggin was a quaint little town although we missed the town entirely - despite having researched a wool shop in the town!  We headed straight out to the seafront car park but Amanda elected to stay in the car with Sid and Finn while I popped out for a wander, in search of photos and postcards.   Success on both counts!

For such a small place, they have a wonderful tourist information centre/ museum/ tea rooms on the front which reminded me very much of both the Rocket House in Cromer and the Mo in Sheringham.  From here, you could see one of the strangest sculptures I've ever seen - Couple.  They were enormous and pretty scary if you ask me!

That's not to say I didn't love them, because I sort of did!   They really are quite surreal.

Four days in Northumberland is not enough and I'm looking forward to exploring more of this place (and quite likely the wool shop!) in more detail when we're next back.

Whitley Bay

We had our first ever trip to Whitley Bay and I seem to recall - it was such a long time ago now, after all - that we were after a wool shop?  What a surprise!  We didn't actually find one, but we did find a rather lovely fish and chip shop that sold gluten free food - and very good it was too - which we ate in the car while taking shelter from the weather.

Amanda has a rather nifty app on her mobile 'phone where we can check out gluten free establishments in any part of the UK and we did use it quite a lot on our holiday - to find out mainly where we could get cake! 

We also had a good walk along the beach but the weather was rubbish, the rain that we'd had earlier in the day at Northumberlandia hadn't stopped and my camera was seriously disliking the wet and actually packed up, which is why I don't have too many photos.

Finn, of course, doesn't mind the weather at all and will swim in all conditions!

Even Sid had a paddle.

A nice beach and one which requires more exploring, but probably on a brighter day.

Northumberlandia 2017

On a very wet day - VERY wet! - we headed to Northumberlandia.   We had been here last back in 2013 when it was very new and we were glad to see it hadn't been spoilt or over-commercialised.  There was a lovely little visitor centre which was new - very small - filled with lots of bird watchers and conservationists all gently steaming from all the rain and the warmth of the hot coffee and tea inside.

We had a good walk all around her, following the laid out paths, and there weren't so many people there today - mainly dogwalkers as a public footpath goes through the middle of the site.  If I lived up here, I'd probably be walking all over her every day too.

I wonder if it rains on her all the time as it was another wet day the last time we were

here?  I was having a job trying to keep the rain out of my camera.

So just a quick zip round this time before heading back to the car and the tea rooms for steaming mugs of hot coffee!  Fab place and I'm looking forward to seeing her on a sunny day one day!

Craster and Dunstanburgh

Because we were only in Northumberland for four nights, we had to cram lots of stuff in, in quite a short space of time, so by the time we got to Craster we'd already been to at least two other places that day and it was quite late in the afternoon and so there were fewer people about than when we had been here before.   It was actually quite nice to walk out to Dunstanburgh Castle with very few others - last time it appeared that we'd got caught up in an elderly ramblers group walk! 

It was pretty cold by this time as we were losing the daylight so we didn't hang about for long.

I love this - Sid studiously ignoring the sheep!

Obviously with my interest in horticulture, I did dawdle a bit on the way back to the car, gawping at some of these gardens along the harbour.

Lovely to see so much colour, relatively late in the gardening year.