Our holiday in Northumberland

Well, we’re back from Northumberland and we had an AMAZING time! It started off well when I managed to get out of work by 2pm, so Jeff and I were on the road, heading to Northumberland by 2:20pm. Unfortunately, the drive didn’t go very well and we were stuck in a LOT of traffic for a LOT of the time! It seemed to mostly be due to the sheer weight of traffic – however we did pass an overturned caravan on the way. All in all, it took over 7 hours to get to Northumberland and that wasn’t even to Jeff’s parents house – that was just to a curry restaurant, where we had something to eat at 9:00pm. After sticking loads of curried goodness in our gobs, we drove to Jeff’s parents, gave them the lemon drizzle cake and the Apple tarts we had baked for them the day previously (his Mother seemed to really like both) before getting the keys to the house and driving over to Beadnell. It took about 30 minutes to get there and it was incredibly foggy. Jeff did all the driving from his parents house to their holiday house and I can’t say I envied him driving down country roads at midnight in the fog!

We were both incredibly knackered the first night so had a shower and went to bed!

The next day we got up and the first task was ‘Swan feeding’ As Jeff’s parents house overlooks the end of the river, two swans which his Mother had named ‘Harry and Sally’ lived very close by and were used to being fed by Jeff’s Mum and other residents. Jeff’s Mum had left us some bread in case we wanted toast but as neither of us were toast inclined, we fed Harry and Sally every morning we were there and thought the noises they made were quite funny.... A kind of grunting crossed with murmuring. I’d like to think they were saying ‘Thanks for the breakfast’, but I imagine it was something like ‘What? That’s it? We want more bread!’

On our first day we drove into Alnwick and went for breakfast in ‘Copperfields’ a local cafe for local people – what was nice (and different to down South) was that when we went in, everyone said ‘Good morning’- It’s very rare you’d ever get that near London! We both decided we’d start the holiday with a ‘bang’ and both opted for a full English breakfast which was absolutely gorgeous, albeit very filling. After a lot of food and tea, we headed to the Metro centre in Newcastle to do some shopping and to meet Jeff’s sister.

Despite the Metro centre being absolutely huge, we parked quite easily and had a bit of a wander whilst waiting for Jeff’s sister to turn up. I bought some jewellery and Jeff managed to buy some new shirts and trousers for his new job which starts today! We met Jeff’s sister and wandered around a bit more, however I felt quite self conscious with his sister – not because she’s a horrible person, she’s not, she’s lovely and very friendly, however I didn’t really want to inconvenience anyone, so didn’t really want to drag her around shops she may not have any interest in. After a bit of a chat, she left as she didn’t fancy going to Yo! Sushi with us. As always, Yo! Sushi was fantastic and we managed to happily munch our way through loads of plates and left feeling very full indeed.

After leaving the Metro centre, Jeff and I headed for the biggest Tescos in the country and bought £70 worth of ingredients so we could cook for his parents and his sister. I have to admit to feeling a bit stressed at this point as whilst it was my suggestion that we cook for them, running about a supermarket for 40 plus minutes was not overly fun, however I managed to ‘suck it up’ and we headed off to his parents to begin the marathon cooking session!

The meal turned out incredibly well. For starters we did the ‘lemon and cumin lamb kofta’s and served them with half a pita bread and some salad. For the main course, we did meat paella and for pudding we did another ‘Juicy Lucy’ with proper Cornish custard. It seemed to go down really well and everyone finished everything – Jeff’s Dad was especially complimentary and we found out afterwards that he had eaten the remainder of the custard that night around midnight!

Jeff and I managed to get back to the house by about 10:00pm and had a cuddle – again, we were utterly knackered.

The next day we were up early again to go to Seahouses. We wanted to see what times the Farne Islands boat tours operated so that we could go to see the seals but also stop off on the National Trust island to see the puffins. Apparently their breeding season has literally just started so whilst we wouldn’t be seeing loads of puffins, we were really hoping we would see at least one or two. We asked a nice bloke at one of the boat boxes what time the trips were and he said 10:30 and 1:00pm – I gave him my mobile number as he said he needed to check with his boss regarding the 1:00pm one and asked that he phone me when he had confirmed the time. We would have gone out on the 10:30 boat trip, however we wanted to drive to Hexham, about 65 miles away as we wanted to go to the farmers market they were having.

Jeff drove to Hexham and it took just over an hour, unfortunately whilst driving to Hexham, the guy in the boat box phoned me and said that he had got it wrong and that the only boat out to the Farne islands was the one at 10:30am, gutted! We decided to continue going to Hexham, hoping that another boat operator had tours to the Farne islands in the afternoon.

We parked quite easily in one of Hexham’s main car parks (close to a very nice Waitrose which we went into after purchasing random things at the farmers market) and wandered into Hexham high street. I have to say, it was absolutely beautiful and whilst I hate it when Americans say the word, it was certainly ‘quaint’. Hexham was also having an Easter fare in one of their parks so we walked around that and observed ‘Welly throwing’ as well as leather crafting, listened to people singing and saw 2 alpaca’s in a small pen (as the stall was selling things made by alpaca wool). The sun was shining and it was an absolutely lovely day – we went into Hexham Abbey which was really nice and the architecture was stunning. Even though Jeff had lived in Northumberland for all his childhood and had visited Hexham before, he hadn’t been in the Abbey, so it was nice to be able to do things with him that he hadn’t done before as I was slightly concerned he would get bored doing the same things again!

We decided we would have a BBQ that night, so got a lot of really yummy and nice things at the farmers market, including a massive Lincolnshire sausage, some burgers, some smoked cheese and some gherkin and onion relish which was absolutely gorgeous! We also bought a pork pie and a pasty for lunch and had half each. After buying lots of ‘stuff’ we headed back via Waitrose to get a disposable BBQ and whilst in there, we found a REALLY funny wine called ‘Chat au Oeuff’ which is obviously ‘Cat on egg’, or maybe ‘Cat on AN egg’ I’m not entirely sure and I don’t think Jeff is either – however, either way it was such a funny name we decided to buy it and drink it that night :-)

After munching our way through the pork pie and pasty in the car, we drove back to Seahouses and thankfully managed to find a parking space – we were very lucky as Jeff managed to reverse into a very small one, which was the last one in the overflow car park! We headed straight down to the boat boxes and asked a lady if there was a trip after 1:00pm (as by this time, it was 1:10pm so we assumed the 1:00pm trip had gone) She said ‘You’re just in time for the next trip’ which was excellent news! We only had to wait a few minutes until the boat arrived so we hopped straight on and were surprised to find only 7-8 other people on the boat as we thought it would be packed due to the weather.

The trip was fantastic, we saw loads of different types of birds and it wasn’t long before we saw some puffins floating in the water. This was brilliant as until then, neither Jeff nor I knew whether or not we would be able to see any. I had my Canon 7D with 70-300mm lens and Jeff had my Canon IXUS 100 so we both took some photographs of the puffins, as well as the other birds on the rocks. We also saw a lot of grey seals and were able to get really close to them – it was absolutely brilliant and I am sure I’ve never taken such close shots before. After an hour or so we landed on the Inner Farne island – free to National Trust members (lucky Jeff) however I had to pay which was fine and got me thinking about joining the National Trust again, especially if we are doing the ‘National Trust challenge’ this year!

Almost immediately we saw some flying puffins and headed down to the rocks, where we also saw a lot of nesting gulls and shags. They were so close to the barrier you could easily reach over and touch them, but thankfully no one actually did and as they’re on an island which you have to pay to travel to, and pay to visit, I imagine the amount of yobs that come there and upset the birds is virtually nil. We had an hour on the island before we headed back, so we wandered around a lot, trying to take as many photographs of puffins as we could. Unfortunately most of the puffin holes were still empty and the ones that were taken were quite far away from the barriers which we were not allowed to cross. Even so, we were able to take some nice photographs and I have to be honest and say I was very, very chuffed that I had seen ‘wild’ puffins as I never had before.

We headed back on the boat and shared some fish and chips – greasy naughtiness! Jeff and I were both glad we shared one as the fish was absolutely huge! We then headed back to seahouses and watched loads of TV and just chilled before setting up the BBQ, which Jeff popped on a ‘proper’ BBQ stand that he found under the house. It literally took about 15 minutes  for everything to be properly cooked and even less time for it all to be eaten as it was gorgeous! We ate both the burgers and the sausage and had them with some salad we also bought at the Hexham farmers market and the wonderful relish (there wasn’t much left afterwards).

We did get rather drunk that night as Jeff’s mother had very kindly left us a bottle of wine in the fridge before we arrived, so we drunk that as well as the ‘Cat on egg’ wine, which wasn’t too bad but was quite weak and I’m not entirely sure we would have it again! Combine fantastic food and nice wine with random crap on TV and you have a very chilled and relaxed night.

The next day was our last day in Northumberland so Jeff and I got up early and went to a local shop to buy a net and a bucket. We had noticed that there were little tiny fish in the lake by the house and whenever we fed the Swans, these small fish would steal some of the bread. I suggested we try and catch one of them and see what they were, before returning them to the lake. Luckily we managed to buy both a net and a bucket for £1 each! After buying the ‘equipment’ we left it in the car for a little while and headed down to the beach, where we successfully managed to get a couple of limpets off the rocks. Whilst this might sound like a rather stupid endeavour, it was due to me, a couple of years ago, trying to prise them off rocks with my bare fingers, not realising how bloody tightly they hold onto things! Therefore when Jeff and I got back into contact, Jeff suggested I try again, but this time, with a screwdriver.

I did manage to get one off a rock – so did Jeff, however we don’t think either were hurt and made sure they went straight back into a rock pool so that they could stick back onto something.

Once back at the house (which was a 60 second drive, maximum!) Jeff attached the net onto a broom handle with some duct tape so it was long enough to dip into the water and we tried our wonderful fish catching plan... which actually worked! I think both of us were quite shocked and even Jeff admitted that he didn’t think we would catch anything. However, after just a few minutes we had 5 small fish in the bucket! We took a photograph of them and then put them gently back into the water and watched them swim off.

As it was getting round to 11:00am we knew that the Wildlife Sanctuary in Ulgham (http://www.wildlife-sanctuary.co.uk) would be open even though it was Easter, so we drove down to there and had a mooch around. It only cost £5 to get and whilst it wasn’t the most fancy, or the biggest wildlife centre we had been to, it was blatantly obvious from the second we stepped foot in there, that the animals were incredibly well cared for and loved – as each one had a ‘story’ which you could read about. There was a hawk with one leg, a grey squirrel which would have got destroyed if it had been given to any other centre (as they are classed as vermin) as well as a young vixen, old goats and horses and a peacock. There was also a very pretty bird in the same enclosure as the peacock, which we had no idea what it was – similar marking as a peacock, but it looked different as it didn’t have any tail feathers.

After we fed the horses and the goats some carrots we had bought at the shop, we headed over to Keilder water and forest park. The sun was shining and it was absolutely beautiful day – we hadn’t decided on doing anything in particular, however as soon as I saw a sign for ‘Bird of prey centre’, I suggested we stop and park and go to look at the birds and Jeff was happy to agree. Parking wasn’t too much of an issue and the bird of prey centre was brilliant. There were loads of flying displays and we caught the end of one display and sat through the next one completely. It was obvious the birds were incredibly well cared for and that the staff loved their jobs – as I love nature photography I was very pleased when I got back home and looked through my photographs as I think I managed to take a few nice ones. One of the nice things about Jeff is that he always offered to carry my photography bag, so I would be on the ground or bent over into funny positions whilst Jeff would carry my kit.

Once we had seen the second display (which involved 2 pelicans wandering around amongst the crowd!) we drove around a bit more until we reached Keilder castle – whilst not the most impressive castle in the world, it was in a very serene place. Jeff and I had a wonderful scone with jam and clotted cream and just sat down on one of the benches outside and chatted – an absolutely brilliant end to our holiday. The rest of the day was spent at his parents’ house, where his mother kindly cooked us a roast dinner and TWO puddings (amaretto trifle which was LUSH!) and a lovely apple sponge pudding. We went to bed absolutely knackered and I think both of us were a bit sad to think that we would have to drive home the next day.

The next morning I was up before Jeff and started tidying his parent’s house so that they wouldn’t have to do anything – after all, it was very kind of them to let us stay there so the last thing we wanted to do was leave it in a mess! After we had breakfast (which consisted of a pear – as we’re now back on the healthy eating BIG TIME!) we headed off to his parents house to give the keys back and started on our long journey down South. Thankfully, the traffic was a lot better and it only took about 5.5 hours to drive back to Jeff’s house.

There were very few ‘bad’ times in our holiday, however one of them was probably on the second day when Jeff realised he had been bitten by loads of midges! His poor arm had loads of bites over them and even now you can see them, despite them fading – I was quite shocked as to how many he had!

Despite my worry about the tomato plants and all the other plants dying outside due to the lack of rain – they were all looking incredibly well and even our tulips have started flowering!!! I headed back home for a few hours to do some washing and sort things out before heading back to Jeff’s and cooking with him – lemon cod with roasted broccoli and vegetables, yummy!

Northumberland was absolutely brilliant and I can’t wait to spend more time with Jeff in the county.

- Molly