News from Nowhere

Yesterday was bright and blowy (as is today, in fact) and we took ourselves up to Broom House Farm, where, being at the top of a hill, it was even blowier:



durham_rambler wanted to drive the car far enough to recharge its battery, and I wanted to visit the farm shop - I could have phoned through an order, but there are advantages to shopping in person, and this is somewhere I can cope with doing that. When I had stocked up on sausages and yoghourt and cheese (and biscuits to accompany it), I took them out to the car where durham_rambler was waiting for me, I persuaded him to join me for a short stroll along the footpath which leads down to the road:

( The shortest of walks )

I was so buoyed up by the success of this expeditioin that I checked the Ocado website, in case there was a chance of completing my shopping there. It seems they have changed their system, and you no longer have to play "guess when slots are issued&qquot;; instead to register to be e-mailed when there is availability where you live. Which in theory is a much better idea. But it comes with a warning: "To begin with, you may only get an email every couple of months,.." That's not so helpful (and if I'd known, I wouldn't have waited three weeks from my previous order). Oh, well.

Yesterday was a wet Bank Holiday Sunday: we lazed about the house, completed the weekend crossword, and each went out alone when we felt like it. The only part of the day for which we had a plan was the evening, and that didn't work out. We had noticed the A-boards outside the Harbour Room, offering various musical entertainments, one of which was 'folk music in the bar' on Sunday, with the information that food was available at all music events, and had interpreted this as meaning that here was a place which served food, and while it might not always be available in the evening, when there was an event on, it would be. So we turned up at opening time to be told oh, no, we don't do food; the sign referred to something of the kind offered at Durham's pub quizzes, where random platters of chips or pizza or nameless pies are included in the entry fee. We decided that this didn't really suit us, and set off down the High Street in the rain. It took a while to find somewhere that wasn't already full, and we were a bit miffed at the Blakeney Hotel, which is huge, didn't seem all that busy, claims to welcome non-residents but asked if we were residents before saying that as we weren't they couldn't fit us in. Possibly they had a large number of unseen guests who were about to claim priority, but we got the impression we just weren't smart enough. Not much further on was the King's Arms, where we found a table and friendly service and warm and filling pub food (and the Bears were full of praise for the vegetarian special, char-grilled haloumi with salad).

Today the forecast told us that the chance of rain peaked at 40% at midday, so we decided to risk it: why does a 40% chance of rain seem less encouraging than it probably won't rain today? We walked the Coastal Path as far as Stiffkey, some four miles into the wind, sometimes with sunshine, sometimes not. The path was busy (no surprise on a fine Bank Holiday Monday) and while we weren't the only party without a dog, we were certainly in the minority. The path runs between farmland and the coastal marshes: our last sight of the sea itself was as we came down to the foot of Blakeney's High Street. But there were boats in muddy creeks, sometimes only their masts visible as we walked, sometimes more:



At Stiffkey we tuned inland, lunched at the Red Lion and then braved the traffic to visit the church. The story of the Rector of Stiffkey is one I learned from my father, and I would have liked to visit his grave, but we were frazzled by the cars trying to force their way down the narrow road, constantly stopping because they weren't comfortable passing each other when both were in motion, and since there was no pavement, pedestrians had to stop too. GirlBear tried to look around the church, but was distracted by kindly fundraisers offering her tea (she won a candle on the tombola).

We came home on the bus.

The solstice is past, the days are getting shorter, and after being on holiday for much of June, I'm back at work.

No, of course it isn't that bad. By the usual (though wrong) definition, the summer has just begun. July promises to bring visitors, which will be fun, and in mid-August we are off on our travels again. And obviously I'm putting off work by making this last holiday post...

On Friday morning I went for a walk: down Crooked Lonnen again, which seemed a much shorter distance on a sunny morning when I was actually awake, and not stiff from not-out-of-bed-yet. I had thought of revisiting some of the willow sculptures of the Nature Trail, and I had thought of walking out to the daymark on Emmanuel Head, and I hadn't actually put these two thoughts together and spotted that they weren't compatible. Quite late in the day I realised that I was too far inland to arrive at the obelisk, took a path across the Nature Reserve into the dunes and - oh, no! - met other people. So I waved from the distance to the white pyramid and the blue sea and the white foam, and wandered through the dunes, taking not-very-successful pictures of flowers:



I spent quite a long time playing hide-and-seek with a bee around this spike of viper's bugloss: the bee won. There were fewer than usual purple orchids, and a higher proportion of pink ones; at one point, a spectacular display of cowslips, all in seed; the meadowsweet not out yet; patches of thyme, and lots of yellow hawkbit. The path deposited me back at the entrance to the reserve earlier than I'd expected, but the sun was high and I was getting thirsty, so I took the hint, and returned to the house for lunch (of the fridge-emptying variety, but accompanied by a bottle of Dark Island).

durham_rambler returned from his diversion, and we might have gone to the Priory, but instead we spent most of the afternoon watching Countdown on catch-up (both semi-finals and a very exciting final). We didn't entirely miss out on the Priory, though, because we had booked a table at the Manor House for dinner (the Ship being full) and discovered, what we had not realised, that their dining room looks straight past the statue of Saint Aidan to the priory church, so that the entire window is filled with rosy pink medieval arches. I don't know why I didn't photograph this. Another time: because the food was perfectly acceptable, if a little pricey, the service was charming and the view made it all worthwhile.

D. went off to Tan Hill, to play with Landrovers. durham_rambler and I came home via Barter Books, where despite my best efforts we left our credit higher than it had been when we arrived, and via the farm shop at Blagdon, where I found provisions to see us through the weekend. D. joined us for dinner and crossword, and set off for home this morning. Another midsummer over.

durham_rambler's special treat for this holiday was to take the world's shortest scheduled air flight, from Westray to Papa Westray, and this morning we did just that. timed it at 1 minute 57 seconds, but that includes take off and landing: we were in the air for rather less than that.

Also taking the Islander were a couple from Cumbria, who had booked a guide to show them round the island, the post lady, who was travelling on to Kirkwall with the mail, and a crew from BBC Radio Scotland, recording for a programme called Out of Doors: four of them (the presenter, sound recorder, researcher and I don't know what the other one did - and was mildly surprised that the project justified so large a team). The flight was fine: a brief view of clear blue water and tiny white birds far below, and then green turf and a miniature shadow of an aeroplane growing larger until we meet it and we're down. The radio presenter, who had been sitting up front next to Colin the pilot, thanked him and said something immensely enthusiastic about how 'we have the best job ever and even so this is the best thing I've done in ages...' and I thought: really? it was very nice, but have you never taken the flight between North Ronaldsay and Kirkwall? - and then I realised that of course he was speaking on microphone, and this was for the benefit of the radio audience. I don't think he was faking it, exactly: but while it may have been genuine, I don't think it was entirely natural.

More or less adjacent to the airfield is Holland Farm, which must be the grandest farm and house on the island, not to mention its smart red paintwork and the Maes Howe dragon painted on what is surely the slurry container (still on jury-rigged wifi, so I can't post photos). It also has a tiny museum, in one of the outbuildings, which is worth dropping in to. And it's where the footpath leads off to the Knap of Howar, a double stone structure which is usually described as " the earliest known dwellings in Orkney - and the oldest standing buildings in northern Europe." Also a delightful location whose doors now open onto blue sea and a view back to Westray, in a turf bank cushioned with pink thrift. Our fellow travellers were there, with their guide, whose puffin badge durham_rambler identified as an actual Puffin Club badge: we greeted each other as fellow members, though we did not use the password and response (Sniffup / Spotera).

Back to the road, and we called in at Beltane House, the hostel where you can, for a donation, use the kitchen to make yourself a cafetiere of coffee, and location of the shop where you can buy provisions for your picnic. A little further on was the post office, where the postmaster (wearing an Icelandic style jumper in the rainbow colours of the wools on sale) recognised durham_rambler's Fair Isle Bird Observatory sweatshirt, and was jealous. Which led to a friendly but ultimately depressing conversation, about Tim Cleeves and corncrakes (there are none on Papay this year).

This brought us down to the sea on the other side of the island, and we followed the coastal path round: wonderful sea views, families of ducks paddling out in the seaweed (little fluffy ducklings learning to plunge), fulmars nesting in the footing of drystone walls (including one right under a stile which fortunately we hadn't tried to use because there was a convenient gap in the wall). And just at the point where I was beginning to think that my ankle would not put up with much more of this awkward hopping from stone to stone and narrow one-foot-directly-in-front-of-the-other business, the going smoothed out into a fine turf path, and then delivered us onto a stony track to the jetty at the Bay of Moclett.

The beautiful beach here was one of the things I had remembered from our previous visit to Papay, and I would have loved to walk on the white sands. But we had a plane to catch, and comfortably enough time to catch it, but not more than that. So we walked the long haul up the road, admiring the way the distances were vanishing into the haze - and gradually realising that this mist was rather more than the ambient island haar. Weary but triumphant, we tumbled into the airport waiting room, and almost as soon as we did, durham_rambler's phone woke up and delivered him a message from Loganair that the plane was cancelled, and we should take the ferry. A kind lady who works at the airport, and who happened to be driving past on the way to her singing group, gave us a lift back the way we had come, to the ferry, and that's how we came back to Westray (it cost £4.20, for the two of us). The ferry, the Golden Mariana, looked very like my memories of the one we took on our first trip to Papa Westray in 1992, and since she was launched in 1973, probably is. (Wikipedia has a good story about the launch.)

Since we had a booking for dinner last night at the Taversoe Hotel, I decided to defer my morning shower until after we had been for a walk. This turned out to be prophetic.

( Hill: the nature reserve. )

( Garden: Trumland House )

We decided we needed a day out over the long weekend, and the forecast was the Sunday was our best bet. This - with the caveat that the weather wasn't brilliant, but that the rest of the weekend was worse - turned out to be the case. durham_rambler asked me where I wanted to go, and since I didn't have anything in particular in mind, I gave him my default answer: the seaside! He had come across references to some additional sculptures in the vicinity of the St Peter's Basin sculpture trail, and we decided this was a clue worth pursuing (spoiler: only approximately true, in both respects - but if we didn't find what we were expecting, we found things we weren't expecting...). Plan A was to head for St Peter's metro, and walk along the river from there to the sea - with a detour on the way in to Sunderland to see if we could get a decent view of the new river crossing (not really: you can see the spire from all over, but getting close would have been more of a diversion than we wanted). Down to the river and under the bridge:



( You have been warned... )

Yesterday was bright and sunny, and since today promised to be the same, I suggested to durham_rambler that we should go out; and since he had mentioned that the Council had created a new route called the Locomotion Way, which wasn't long and wasn't difficult, we thought we could probably manage that. (It is altogether too long since we have done any walking worth the name; even our lovely pre-Christmas walk in London was only a couple of miles, though we spent all afternoon over it).

The Locomotion Way runs alongside the railway between Shildon and Newton Aycliffe, and is being presented as primarily utilitarian: "The three-metre wide Locomotion Way is a fast track for commuters by bike or on foot to get to work or school being exactly half the distance of the road route between the two towns." We agreed that we'd park at the railway museum in Shildon, and see whether any of the paths on the map would be a practical alternative to walking the same route there and back. This is something on which we continually disagree: durham_rambler hates to turn round and retrace his steps, and I think that sometimes it's preferable to the alternative. Also, that a route looks entirely different when you are walking in the opposite direction. Noetheless, on this occasion he was right.

We found a footpath that ran along and above the railway, along the field edge:



It had been frosty enough overnight that what might have been mud was still frozen to firm walking, not icy but there were still very occasional patches of snow, and the puddles were crunchy. The path descended to the edge of a quarry (this was the slippery bit), then we turned up a lane where a few snowdrops were emerging, and so out into Newton Aycliffe. A brief walk along the road brought us to the point where by squeezing round a gate and ignoring a notice telling us that this was not a dedicated highway, we were able to pick up the Locomotion Way without going all the way to the station - and from there it was an easy but not very interesting walk back to Shildon.

durham_rambler calculates that we walked 7km or 4⅓ miles: he made a map.

We dropped in on the museum, mostly just for bacon sandwiches at the café, though we did admire the film star - an engine in fake livery, which had starred in The Railway Children. And we made a detour on the way home to get a better look at a sculpture we had once seen from the road and wondered "What is THAT?" - and discovered that since it stands in the middle of a thicket and is completely inaccessible, it must be the artist's intention that you see it from the road and wonder "What is THAT?"

So, going out: a success and we should do more of it.

Birdoswald is a fort on the Roman Wall, which we have visited before, but long ago - certainly not since the metal bridge at Willowford was built in 2001. Our first visit was while it was still being run as a farm - until 1984 - but we've been back since then, surely? Though not since it came into the keeping of English Heritage. Anyway, I keep saying I want to visit, and we keep saying we will and then not doing it; it's just that bit longer a journey.

I said some of this to S., who is organised and efficient, and she replied that it would be a good trip for the three of us to make this weekend. So that's what we did on Friday.

It's a drive of about an hour west from Newcastle. The sun was shining and the hedges were heavy with blossom on the blackthorn, and the verges golden with dandelions: I've never noticed them blooming as thickly as they are this spring, and though it could be that I've never paid attention in the right place at the right time, I don't think so, I think there is a particularly good crop. We arrived at Birdoswald in time for coffee in their tea-shop, and for a look around the exhibition - all new since my last visit. The guidebook is lavishly illustrated with items found on the site, but these are mostly in the museum in Carlisle. The exhibition maintains that the really exciting things are here, or are intangible: the archaeology that revealed a great wooden hall from the post-Roman 'Dark Ages' built on the foundations of the granaries, the altar inscribed Deo Sancto Silvano Venatores Banniess ('dedicated to Silvanus by the Venatores [are they hunters?] Bannienses') from which we infer that the fort was known to the Romans as 'Banna', though it seems a substantial inference to build on one inscription. Nor could I see any sign of lettering on the stone which identifies the third century garrison as I Aelia Dacorum, though this I will take on trust, since I am pleased to learn how early the first recorded Romanian immigrants arrived.

I had a brief failure to grasp the layout of fort itself; leaving the courtyard, you walk round the old farmhouse (now available to rent, if you need hostel accommodation for 40) and find yourself in a fenced area like a gravelled garden. Beyond the fence is lush grass and a massive stone wall leading away - but this isn't the Wall, it's the wall of the fort, and the field it encloses contains not only sheep but the humps and bumps of the remaining buildings. It has, I think, all been excavated, but then covered over for conservation. We wandered around the granaries, and I took many pictures, but the camera doesn't see what the eye does, and refuses to convey the compositions of stone below, blue sky and bare trees above, and sheep peacefully grazing in between that I thought I was photgraphing. Still, it's hard to go wrong with Roman stone:



This is the masonry of the east gate. When we had circled the entire perimeter of the fort, and gone to the edge of the headland to peer down at the river Irthing below (not far at all, and some of the outer buildings have already vanished over the edge), we were ready for lunch. We found this close by, at Slack House Farm, where I ate a ploughman's lunch consisting of two massive wedges of their own Birdoswald cheese (I preferred the younger, creamier version, though the aged was a perfectly respectable cheddar-type cheese), good wholemeal bread and pickles. Beyond the viewing window, someone was hard at work making more cheese.

After this we felt ready to return to the Wall, and follow it away from the fort, to the point where it crosses the Irthing - or rather, to the point where it used to cross the Irthing, which has now moved a substantial distance away. It's a steep descent from the milecastle to the new footbridge, and a path of loose stones which isn't pleasant to walk on. I took it slowly, and paused to admire the blackthorn, and two tiny violets huddling together in the grass. But the bridge abutment was well worth the effort, and we had the satisfaction of confirming that the climb back up from the river was much easier (I was expecting this, and was still surprised how much easier it was).

We drove back to Newcastle along the Military Road, which follows the line of the Wall: and S. gave us tea and biscuits and sent us home.

The clocks went forward overnight: another sign of spring. But after several days of sharp, cold showers, today we have mist. Whatever happened to spring? A rhetorical question to which I know the answer:



Spring was on Monday. Luckily we didn't miss it, but took the day off and went to Gibside. It was so sunny that I decided to leave my waterproof in the car - and didn't regret it, my jumper was warm enough.

There have been changes since we were last there: the new car park is now open, much closer to the entrance and down by the river. So our exploration of the grounds started with a stiff climb up, past the new ticket kiosk, then through the walled garden, now completely dedicated to garden plots but with not much happening at the moment (that is, a stretch of fallen wall is being repaired, but there's not much growing). The orangery was a blaze of daffodils. We tried to strike down through the meadow to the river, and were rewarded with some dramatic silhouettes of the orangery against the sun, but hit a dead end, and had to retrace our steps to the junction of the paths, and reach the river past the ice house. We had soup for lunch at the café in the stables, which has moved across the courtyard, been spruced up and lost its second-hand books (they will be back, elsewhere in the stables, later in the summer, apparently). We looped round the monument but didn't detour, paid a brief visit to the old house, and returned along the avenue to the chapel.

I wonder why John Bowes decided to make so complete a break when he built his new house / museum by the Tees?

Yesterday we both agreed it was time to go for a walk, and that since we haven't been getting out much lately, we should make it a very easy one. durham_rambler suggested we visit Hawthorn Dene: someone had told him that the snowdrops there were spectacular just now. We got out the map, and plotted a short walk down to the sea and back. It became clear when we talked about where to park that my recollection of the area were of Castle Eden Dene, not Hawthorn, but still, adjacent coastal inlet nature reserve, what difference did it make? So I have only myself to blame for how muddy I got.

We parked as instructed on the roadside at the entrance to the dene, and follower the broad track into the nature reserve. Very soon a path led away, down into the wooded valley, with an enticing information board about all the things we might see there (though probably not at the beginning of March). Innocently, we followed it, and found ourselves snaking up and down short flight of steps as the path followed the valley side, sometimes on dry ground, sometimes through well-stirred mud, sometimes over duckboards. There were catkins, and dog's mercury, and blades of green promising that in a month or so the woodland would be carpeted with white stars and reeking of garlic, but not a single snowdrop. We discussed this: we had both anticipated that the snowdrops might be past their best, but not this total absence. It was bright and sunny and warm enough that I was glad to have decided against putting on another jumper, and just keeping on the path gave us plenty to think about.

Eventually, it climed up and met the track again; we could have taken the easy, level route all the way. But where's the fun in that? Still, when a lump of rock presented itself, we took the chance to sit down and look around us, across the meadow to the woods on the far side where something white glimmered under the trees...

We followed the path to the railway. The couple ahead of us were walking five dogs, and it took them a while to persuade (and mostly carry) them across the two stiles onto and then off the track, so we hung well back - and were just crossing the stile on the far side when a train came through. The sea was blue, but we didn't go down to the beach (I'd had enough steps for one day), walking along the cliff top as far as the footbridge, and into the woods we had seen earlier.

I was just beginning to wonder whether that blanket of white had been an illusion, an effect of the sun shining on the ivy that covered the ground so densely...