A week on Lindisfarne
Jun. 24th, 2007 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustSince it worked so well for us last year, we again rented 3, Herring Houses, our home from home on Holy Island, to see in midsummer. Despite having just returned from a holiday about which I have not yet finished posting, we were rather more relaxed about spending more time away, returning home midweek for a scant two days. Hence the prolonged radio silence, and rather compressed nature of this post. A few highlights:
Despite the severe weather warnings, we had mostly fine weather. We woke each morning to see the castle wreathed in mist, or occasionally not to see it at all, and each day we thought that the threatened bad weather had arrived: but each day the sun broke through. So we were able to do something we have not previously done in all the years we've been visiting the island, and walk the pilgrim route - marked by a line of posts - across the sands back to the mainland. It isn't particularly exciting walking - level sands, clear route, there and back while the tide is out - but the big silvery sky shines from the pools left by the retreating tide, and the timing meant that we were back in time for the traditional crab sandwiches and a glass of Adnams (as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler points out, it may not be local, but it is beer from the coast).
We spent Monday in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which my 1957 Pevsner describes as "One of the most exciting towns in England". "Exciting" would not have been the first word I'd have thought of, but it was a very agreeable place to spend a little time: we parked south of the Tweed, and crossed the river on the old bridge, which gave us fine views of the sixteenth century walls, and the more recent bridges, and brought us into town at one of the points on the Lowry Trail. This was a complete surprise: I knew that L.S. Lowry had painted places other than Salford - Sunderland, for one - but the Berwick association was new to me. The trail is marked by a series of notice boards, each showing one of Lowry's pictures and placed in front of the location it depicts. The number of these which survive substantially as Lowry painted them is indicative of the lack of excitement in Berwick, and I mean that as a compliment. We didn't follow the trail, but stuck to our original plan of walking round the ramparts, and then cut into the town for a little light shopping (the bookshop, more books from the charity shops, beer and chestnut spread from the Green shop).
On Tuesday we had a rendezvous with Kathy and Brian, whose holiday in the north-east coincided with our midsummer break. We had agreed to meet in Barter Books, where I succeeded in bartering a number of books, acquiring a few more early puffins for my collection at prices I would not dream of paying if I were paying cash. We lunched together, and then went our separate ways:durham_rambler dropped me in Newcastle, where I pottered around happily until it was time for my graphic novels reading group, and some cheerful if not entirely consequential comics gossip. Wednesday we caught up with work, and handed on the key to Herring Houses to David who called in on his way north. Thursday morning's Farmers' Market was an opportunity to restock some necessities (good bread, good cheese, bacon and black pudding for the post-sunrise breakfast); we had not actually planned to meet helenraven in Waitrose, but after all, where else? And so north again...
One thing we had enjoyed about our house last year was that there was a house martins' nest about the bathroom window, a quarter globe of mud looking much like a section of coconut shell. When we arrived this year, there was just a tiny ledge of mud, with barely enough room for a single bird, and there was much swooping and indignant twittering and twitching of tail feathers. But they seemed to be rebuilding, late though it was, and by the time we left on Tuesday there were three complete nests, one in the bathroom window as before, one in the adjacent window of the neighbouring house, and one in the corner of the garage door. Kathy suggested that the dry weather had made it hard for them to gather up the necessary mud, and it was the overnight rain that had allowed this rapid reconstruction. Maybe. But when we returned on Thursday, all three nests had been destroyed, and under the one in the garage door - the nearest to the ground - two little eggs and a broken shell lay on a pile of mud. The courtyard was very quiet, and although after a day or so we started to see the birds again, the level of activity was much reduced. I have no idea what had happened.
Despite some fine days, and at least one golden evening, when the long low sunshine made the castle glow, and set a fiery path burning on the sea, we had no great hopes of actually seeing the sun rise. David had been on the island for the solstice itself, and said that he had seen the sun clear the clouds, though not as impressively as the previous year. But our tradition is to mark the rising of the sun on the Saturday nearest the solstice (even now, not all the celebrants are free midweek); and Saturday morning was the greyest of all our days on the island. We rose, made our way to the shore beyond the castle, failed to make contact with Richard, checked our watches and eventually admitted that the time for sunrise was past, the sun had not risen and that the world must therefore have ended: this, as helenraven remarks, is normal. (Though the downpour that followed was pretty spectacular).
After that, the usual stuff; some people return to bed, some go for walks first and then to bed. Some eat cooked breakfast, some don't. Some visit David's family, some return to their several homes. There was Doctor Who, and there was dinner (surplus black pudding from breakfast went into a beef casserole, my own invention with which I am well pleased, accompanied by home-made garlic bread), andvalydiarosada and I sat up much too late chatting about filk and fandom and books and LJ and other pleasures. And today there was lunch before the parting of the ways. And it was all good.
And that's it for another year. Now the days just get shorter until midwinter.
Despite the severe weather warnings, we had mostly fine weather. We woke each morning to see the castle wreathed in mist, or occasionally not to see it at all, and each day we thought that the threatened bad weather had arrived: but each day the sun broke through. So we were able to do something we have not previously done in all the years we've been visiting the island, and walk the pilgrim route - marked by a line of posts - across the sands back to the mainland. It isn't particularly exciting walking - level sands, clear route, there and back while the tide is out - but the big silvery sky shines from the pools left by the retreating tide, and the timing meant that we were back in time for the traditional crab sandwiches and a glass of Adnams (as durham_rambler points out, it may not be local, but it is beer from the coast).We spent Monday in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which my 1957 Pevsner describes as "One of the most exciting towns in England". "Exciting" would not have been the first word I'd have thought of, but it was a very agreeable place to spend a little time: we parked south of the Tweed, and crossed the river on the old bridge, which gave us fine views of the sixteenth century walls, and the more recent bridges, and brought us into town at one of the points on the Lowry Trail. This was a complete surprise: I knew that L.S. Lowry had painted places other than Salford - Sunderland, for one - but the Berwick association was new to me. The trail is marked by a series of notice boards, each showing one of Lowry's pictures and placed in front of the location it depicts. The number of these which survive substantially as Lowry painted them is indicative of the lack of excitement in Berwick, and I mean that as a compliment. We didn't follow the trail, but stuck to our original plan of walking round the ramparts, and then cut into the town for a little light shopping (the bookshop, more books from the charity shops, beer and chestnut spread from the Green shop).
On Tuesday we had a rendezvous with Kathy and Brian, whose holiday in the north-east coincided with our midsummer break. We had agreed to meet in Barter Books, where I succeeded in bartering a number of books, acquiring a few more early puffins for my collection at prices I would not dream of paying if I were paying cash. We lunched together, and then went our separate ways:
durham_rambler dropped me in Newcastle, where I pottered around happily until it was time for my graphic novels reading group, and some cheerful if not entirely consequential comics gossip. Wednesday we caught up with work, and handed on the key to Herring Houses to David who called in on his way north. Thursday morning's Farmers' Market was an opportunity to restock some necessities (good bread, good cheese, bacon and black pudding for the post-sunrise breakfast); we had not actually planned to meet helenraven in Waitrose, but after all, where else? And so north again...One thing we had enjoyed about our house last year was that there was a house martins' nest about the bathroom window, a quarter globe of mud looking much like a section of coconut shell. When we arrived this year, there was just a tiny ledge of mud, with barely enough room for a single bird, and there was much swooping and indignant twittering and twitching of tail feathers. But they seemed to be rebuilding, late though it was, and by the time we left on Tuesday there were three complete nests, one in the bathroom window as before, one in the adjacent window of the neighbouring house, and one in the corner of the garage door. Kathy suggested that the dry weather had made it hard for them to gather up the necessary mud, and it was the overnight rain that had allowed this rapid reconstruction. Maybe. But when we returned on Thursday, all three nests had been destroyed, and under the one in the garage door - the nearest to the ground - two little eggs and a broken shell lay on a pile of mud. The courtyard was very quiet, and although after a day or so we started to see the birds again, the level of activity was much reduced. I have no idea what had happened.
Despite some fine days, and at least one golden evening, when the long low sunshine made the castle glow, and set a fiery path burning on the sea, we had no great hopes of actually seeing the sun rise. David had been on the island for the solstice itself, and said that he had seen the sun clear the clouds, though not as impressively as the previous year. But our tradition is to mark the rising of the sun on the Saturday nearest the solstice (even now, not all the celebrants are free midweek); and Saturday morning was the greyest of all our days on the island. We rose, made our way to the shore beyond the castle, failed to make contact with Richard, checked our watches and eventually admitted that the time for sunrise was past, the sun had not risen and that the world must therefore have ended: this, as helenraven remarks, is normal. (Though the downpour that followed was pretty spectacular).
After that, the usual stuff; some people return to bed, some go for walks first and then to bed. Some eat cooked breakfast, some don't. Some visit David's family, some return to their several homes. There was Doctor Who, and there was dinner (surplus black pudding from breakfast went into a beef casserole, my own invention with which I am well pleased, accompanied by home-made garlic bread), and
valydiarosada and I sat up much too late chatting about filk and fandom and books and LJ and other pleasures. And today there was lunch before the parting of the ways. And it was all good.And that's it for another year. Now the days just get shorter until midwinter.
