I left my sock in Bruges

When it came to deciding on a honeymoon location, N and I were in swift agreement: Bruges. It had to be Bruges.

We’re both fans of the darkly, bitterly funny film, In Bruges with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, which also contains one of the finest comedy gangster performances you’re ever likely to see Ralph Fiennes deliver.

So we set ourselves in the direction of the “fahkin’ fairytale” medieval cobbled city at the end of October. I’d booked a medieval (there is a theme in Bruges) cottage right next to the canal and then booked the Eurostar so we could feel all green and smug. A feeling that quickly evaporated when we realised we were seated facing backwards and my sea sickness (so much worse now that the perimenopause has kicked in) took a fierce grip.

But we made it. 7 hours of travelling, 4 trains. Green with sickness and smuggery, one of us at least, we staggered from the final station with one wheelie suitcase and one partly wheelie (it lost a wheel en route) case that had to be carried, and straight into a town more well preserved than David Dimbleby. As we passed along the streets, the lights became dimmer. The walls of the houses were punctuated with niches in which sat Mary and Jesus in various states of decoration and decay, looking down as we cringed at the sound of our own approach. Mullioned windows blinked the subdued streetlights at us as we and a handful of other brave souls headed for our respective staying places.

 
The sound of a dozen wheelie suitcases making their way over the Bruges medieval (that word is going to get a lot of use in this post) cobbles is like nothing you’ve ever heard. Not even the thunder of hooves at the Cheltenham Gold Cup comes close.

 

The house was beautiful (although there was a noticeable lack of tea bags and milk on our arrival – this is the very last time I use Air BNB) and only a few minutes’ walk from the very centre of things: the Markt, the tower, the museums, the churches. There are a lot of churches – this is a deeply Catholic country. Our longest walk was on the 1^st day when we went to see the Jeruzalemkerk* to the north(ish) of the city. This was one of the film spots, but also, just somewhere I wanted to visit because I have a passion for old churches and N is kind enough to tolerate that. Or at least lean against a wall outside looking up nearby battlesites while I go knock myself out.

 
The cobbles did an absolute number on my poor arthritic feet and I watched with jaw dropped in awe at the oh-so-chic women swinging along in heels and camel-coloured coats, apparently unaware that the ground beneath them was chronically unstable. They would sweep past, all dark glasses and shiny hair, speaking rapid Flemish into their phones, casting glances of disdain at the giggling couples** and pouting singles taking selfies along the canal wall.

Houses in Bruges can go for over 1 million euro, the chap leading the canal boat tour (yes, we did). Leading you to wonder where the real people are when they are not selling us postcards, taking us on carriage rides (no, we didn’t) or serving us terrible beer (much head, little liquid, for god’s sake don’t complain or ask them to top the glass up…they really don’t like that, keep quiet, order your moules et frites and make a mental note to only drink wine for the rest of the trip).
 
The coffee was delicious. Short little cups, drained in 3 gulps, but rich and aromatic, served with cream not thin and unsatisfying milk. Hot and revivifying in a way I had forgotten coffee could be. Everywhere it is served with a little speculoos biscuit – that lovely caramel, slightly spicy biscuit – apart from one memorable occasion where it came with a little dish of nougat and marzipan made on the premises. A marzipan made with real almonds, not a whiff of essence in tastebud reach, it was a completely different beast to the sort we cover our claggy fruit cakes with. I brought quite a lot of it to take home.
 
We saw extraordinary art – Bosch and van Eyck and Memling. At the Groeninge, halfway through, there is an extraordinary painting in the chiascuro style, of a young woman and her lover, the candlelight giving her a luminosity that made me cry. I brought a print to bring home where now, in the lamplight, it glows again. At the St-Janshospitaal, there was a splendid exhibition on the assumption of Mary as depicted in art through the ages. There I found a wonderful olive wood carving and Books of Hours that were rich with colour and devotion. The Gruuthuse Museum was full, packed to the gills with interesting things, some of which dated back to the Iron Age. At last! Something older than medieval! There is a surprising lack of natural history in Bruges. It’s like nothing happened here until God moved in.

 
Speaking of which, there were many, many churches, of course. I do wonder myself at my complete irreligious self so liking churches. At the Helig Bloed Basiliek, there is a phial of (allegedly) Christ’s blood that (supposedly) liquefies every now and then. There is no entry fee, but you are invited to pay due REVERENCE by way of a donations box right in front of the phial, guarded by a stern woman who looks like she probably ignores safe words. It felt…cheap. Lacking in taste. I mean, charge me an entry fee, sell me a postcard and some holy socks but don’t put the donation box right in front of the bloody exhibit.
 
In another church (by this time, even I’ve forgotten the names), there was a decidedly graphic reliquary with a bit of a saint’s arm bone in there. I wondered if that waved every now and then.
 
In between, I would make N pause for more coffee and a break from the cobbles, and he would fill me in on the tour we were taking in the middle of the week, which battlefields, which war memorials, which cemetery for the war dead with their rows and rows of graves that saturate you with sadness. 9am to 6pm that tour. It is safe to say he made me pay him back for the churches.

 
Our final night, we ate at the little tavern 2 doors down from us where we had made friends with the pub dog and the food was cheap. Drank a final glass of wine (on Belgian soil anyway), chatted to the owner and tried not to think of the 7 hour, 4 train return journey.
 
And the sock? A casualty of packing light so I could bring back ALL the chocolate. I’d had to do a wash halfway through the week, draping the wet socks on the radiator to dry. 4 hours later, I knocked it down the impenetrable back of the radiator. I like to think of it slowly becoming at one with the house. Or hooked out by the puzzled owner with a long arm, an even longer piece of wire and a growing collection of odd, foreign socks.

*I’m currently posting this with no WiFi due to complicated BT-engineer-based reasons, so I’ll add links another day
**We took precisely 1 selfie because otherwise, how would we prove we’d been there? But there was absolutely no giggling. Serious selfies befitting of our Great Age (personal age, I mean. There is nothing great about this political age).

Winner of this year's "Nicest Pub Dog with 

Silkiest Ears" award

October at the Allotment

As you can imagine, there is something about a wedding that gets in the way of allotment time. Apart from flying visits during the day where I'd dash up there, water and chat to the sunflowers, I didn't really linger. Certainly, my habit of taking a coffee up with me and sitting down to watch the insects fell by the wayside. 

But now we're in October and there is no big event to plan and make metres and metres of bunting, or stamp seed packets, or sift wildflower seeds, or source vintage jugs, or panic-source tablecloths for, so now I can switch my attention back to the place that brings me most peace. 

I'm planting red and white onions that will ripen over the winter. Garlic and broad beans too. The kale is still going, so I'll leave that in situ, but mainly this month is about tidying down. 

The courgettes are done, so I dug those up at the weekend. The french beans too, but I'm letting those die back before lifting them as they're good for setting nitrogen in the soil. The potatoes are all out now too. Only the sunflowers really remain, defiant against the dropping temperatures. And I'm reluctant to cut the raspberry canes down just yet as the bees are still bimbling amongst them, finding nectar where I thought it was all gone for the year. 

We got to try our first ever home-grown red cabbage. Shredded thinly, served with beetroot and red onion (likewise) with feta and a standard vinaigrette dressing, it was delicious. Red cabbage salad is one of my favourites. Good job really - there are 5 more cabbages in varying stages of readiness up at the plot. 

I've wound the hose up for the last time and strimmed all the long grass down with my inadequate strimmer. It's battery only lasts about 5 minutes, so it takes a good 4 trips to get the whole plot done. A little frustrating but a good excuse for short breaks from the desk this week. I've cleaned the tools and managed not to scream at the spider that wanted to know what I was doing, lifting its comfy trowel out of the dark corner. 

The plan is to let everything die down and settle down until November when we'll start making plans for the raised beds. the 4th growing area will be going no dig for next year as I just don't have it in me to dig over another large area like that. I always end up damaged and with large physio bills when I do. Instead, we've been gathering cardboard like there's a world shortage and will soon order in the tonnes of topsoil we'll need. 

Then it's the simple task of building the beds, getting the topsoil to the plot, lifting it into the beds...I'll stop there. I already feel the need for a lie down. 

Luckily my brother-in-law is a gardener for hire, with a van and the quiet winter period looming, so we'll rope him in with promises of tea, sausage sandwiches and a day's pay. I think the latter may be a more convincing bribe. If we can get my sis and her kids involved, it'll be like an Amish barn raising. Without the barn. Or the beards. 

Then it'll be time to move our sights to the far end of the plot. By February, I'm hoping to have that cleared of knotweed, fallen tree branches and accumulated nonsense so the polytunnel can go down there. In short, there are plans afoot. 

N and I spent a good few hours in the garden on Saturday. It was looking raggedy around the edges with drooping tomato plants, pots piled everywhere and the corpses of plants that didn't make it through the drought standing like little signposts of guilt about the place. 3 hours later, everything dead or about to be cleared, pots washed and piled neatly, mini greenhouse cleaned and scrubbed, a big yup of stuff for the tip gathered, roses and honeysuckle pruned, we toasted our efforts with mugs of tea and a sit down. 

I once heard that Sophia Loren's advice for staying youthful was to avoid 'old people noises', those groans and whimpers and oohs and aahs people of a Certain Age make after physical exertion...or just standing up from the armchair. I'm sorry Sophia, but I made all the old person noises on Saturday. Worth it though. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We are halfway through October, my favourite month of the year, and it still feels like our feet haven't touched the ground. Thank-you cards have arrived but remain unwritten. I will tackle them tomorrow and hope we're forgiven a little tardiness. 

A lot of the whirlwind has been around work as mine continues busy and N started university the Monday after the wedding. At the start of the month, I went to see a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Birmingham Rep which was beautifully handled, with signing (some of the actors were deaf) and a sensitive treatment of multiple needs. Hero was actually given some autonomy in this performance, instead of remaining a cipher, a pretty mute thing who has no voice but merely accepts the fates dealt by the terrible men around her. It was rather refreshing. 

The last time I'd seen this play, it was a Bollywood version in Stratford, which was a visual feast. I've always loved the sparring between Beatrice and Benedick. 

Last Saturday we went to see Mark Steel, the comedian, at Tenbury Wells Regal, a treat of a little art deco theatre, loving restored and working again. I'm a big fan of his 'In Town' series on Radio 4 and he didn't disappoint. Every joke about a place is said with genuine fondness for its strange customs and quirks, there is no malice. Unless he was talking about the present government, but then he could be forgiven that. Especially as the audience felt much the same. 

We have met up with some of the RHS course crew a few times since it came to an end in May, most recently yesterday. Generally at each other's houses or in a garden centre. Mostly, the talk is not about gardens or gardening careers, but about families and plans and life in general. Children and pets run around. We eat. We chat. We swap cuttings and bulbs. 

Lured in by how much I'd enjoyed the films, we started watching Rings of Power and got 3 episodes in before I declared I did not care for any of the characters, and I did not care for a stroppy Galadriel, and I did not care for meaningful looks where a simple "this is a terrible idea and we shouldn't do it" statement would do. But Ghosts has restarted which makes me joyous, as does the new puppy on Gardener's World, all wriggly legs and ears. Bake Off continues to reach new heights of silliness and I don't care in a good way; it is the icing on the bun on the bake that is unnecessarily complicated but still, somehow, delicious. I think I might be in awe of Noel Fielding's eyeliner. 

The Cheltenham Literary Festival is on. I haven't been to an event there since I saw Audrey Niffenegger speak in 2010. Back then, I was living a different life, writing a different blog. Now I'm living this one and looking forward to seeing Ian Hislop talk about his Desert Island Books tomorrow with N. I've long admired Hislop's intelligence and wit, so this should be interesting. And yes, I do have a list of desert island books of my own, and have already decided that, should I ever be on the Desert Island Discs, I will reject the copy of the bible for the collected novels of the Brontes. 

Speaking of which, I will not be watching the new film, Emily. I'm sure it's a very good film but I feel that all biopics take liberties with the truth and Emily Bronte has suffered enough at the hands of people taking liberties with her truth. 

But I have reread the book recently, and Jane Eyre, and Dracula. This month always calls for Victorian novels, I feel, and I've got a copy of Lady Audley's Secret to hand, a blanket to curl up under and Nordic socks to wear to keep my feet warm. These socks are simply amazing. Warm enough to keep my toes from feeling froze, even without slippers or within wellies, whilst not keeping them so warm I end up with unpleasantly sweaty feet. Consider this a wholehearted recommendation. 

Some mornings, I've got myself out of the house for a walk along the canal just as the sun breaches the trees. The air has that autumn smell of woodsmoke, fog, damp bark and earth that is so wonderful. The colours make my smile wider and my step springier. I'm enjoying Mabel's fluffier coat, the return of soup to our lives, the shine of conkers against the paths, the moon rising a little higher and brighter against the darker skies. 

Once we return from Bruges, a proper hunkering down will begin. Fewer excursions, a retreat to warmth and light behind our doors. I love the whole process of Wintering, when my overstimulated brain is allowed to rest, when I naturally wake later and don't feel that surge of 'must do' that comes from the lighter half of the year. I am a natural hibernator. 

Autumn, I've been waiting for you. 

A Perfect Equinox

On this fine 1st of October morning, I am tucked up in the spare bed in the Retreat (aka my office), under the duvet with coffee fragrancing the room and a stomach that's gently rumbling in anticipation of brunch. This is where I go when I wake at 6am, my brain won't let me sleep any longer and I don't want to keep N awake with my own awakeness. I'm comfortable and warm. 

I am also 7 days married, the wedding ring light and glinting on my hand. 

Yes, 12 months of planning that included, roughly: 90 sunflower seedlings sown, 144 squares of bunting sewn, 120 invites, at least 3 lively debates about the benefits of eloping (me) versus staying here and catering for gannets (him), one dress meltdown and a tablecloth near-emergency. But the day was bright and clear and autumnal. Just as we'd wanted. 

The whole thing was just as we'd hoped and neither of us stopped smiling or laughing the Whole Day, which was perfect (although it's taken a week for the muscles in our faces to stop aching). Everyone we loved, liked or tolerated for the sake of each other were there. The ceremony was simple but perfect. I got a fit of the giggles at the sight of this man I've known for 20 years standing there being very solemn and serious. 

Friends currently on sticks (unrelated accidents) formed an arch that we charged through after the vows. The green shot silk of my dress and his tie shimmered in the sun. The bride and groom, bridesmaids and anyone else sensible enough to take our advice, wore trainers. 

The day before we'd spent hours decorating the venue with sunflowers, seed heads, berries, rosemary, ivy and grasses spilling out of the vintage vases. Around them I'd scattered dried lavender heads, gourds and pinecones. What I'd hoped for - a feeling of harvest, of abundance - translated nicely into reality without any need for fiddly bits of wire or complicated oasis bases. Just keep stuffing those jugs till they'll take no more. 

On the welcome table, mossy twigs, ivy, hawthorn, oak, rosehips, blackberries, conkers and thistles spread along the gauzy surface with its brown paper and string wrapped coleus. We invited people to leave a message and take a seed packed. Wildflower seeds we'd gathered from the allotment. 

We'd got bottles of bubbles, sketch books and pencils for the children who'd been dragged along. We were left some lovely, from the heart, drawings. And some more risque ones from the adults as we got further along into the night. I don't feel you need to see those. Let's just say, I'm glad we didn't put disposable cameras out. 

The food was, according to all who spoke of it, delicious. I managed a side plate, quickly grabbed under the insistent gaze of my Friend from the North. N was similarly frogmarched in the buffet table direction. Later we danced to Divine Comedy's Perfect Love Song, a stumbling shambling dance that we should probably have rehearsed more but we were too busy grinning to care what people thought of our moves. 

At 9pm, we had the additional treat of a firework display courtesy of the wedding taking place in the hall behind us. All the benefit, as it banged and zipped over the lake and trees, oohs and aahs coming naturally, none of the expense. 

When the last taxi door had slammed behind the last guest, we thanked the bar staff (who'd been kept busy ALL night) and headed across the fields for our bed in the hall. Obviously, we had no torch. Equally obviously, there was no light of the moon as it was a new moon. There may have been a detour through a field of nettles and an encounter with a gate that would not open no matter how much I pulled it. Luckily N pushed it just as I was about to hitch up skirts to climb over, and it opened just fine. 

I'm reading and rereading this, feeling that my retelling is perhaps a little sparse? In truth, it's because I'm still too full of it. Too full of the magnitude and the happiness of it. Neither of us stopped spinning that day and, although we've had to return to work pretty sharpish, that feeling of spinning hasn't gone away. When I look back, I remember nothing but laughter. Shapes being thrown on the dance floor by friends. A lot of beer. Joy. 

Two Go To An Island

Oh Lindisfarne, you are so beautiful and strange. Driving over the causeway, a mild frisson of fear that maybe you've got the tide timings wrong, and the sea is going to come rushing at you as you get halfway, is always something special. The vast flat expanse winks with shallow saltwater pools as you cross. One day, I've promised myself, I'll do it by foot to get a real idea of what it would have been like, back in the 7th Century, to undertake that crossing. A leap of faith that even I, a faithless person, can appreciate the magnitude of. 

Whizzing across on tarmac just doesn't contain the same profundity. 

And once across, everywhere you look, that shimmering North Sea surrounding you, the air full of gull cries and oozing seaweed smells. Boats lean drunkenly into the sands, lobster pots sink into each other with resignation. Years ago, when I first came here, there was a sandwich shack selling fresh crab sandwiches. I couldn't see one this time around. 

There was also that strange glitter in the eye of residents, a twitch to the professional smile, that indicated they were, at the end of this long summer, coming to the end of their patience. It's a look I recognise. It's a look I once had. It states very clearly, to those in the know, that the person before you has dealt with approximately eleventy-billion people asking the same damn silly question about the tide/Vikings/whereabouts of ice cream/Lindisfarne Gospels/insert own tic-inducing question. 

Like a parent of small children, they will have been repeating the same information/issuing the same demand (do not feed the dog pickled onions! Yes, you have to get across before the sea starts coming in! Do not put your sister's fingers in the electric socket! No, you cannot eat ice cream in the museum!) since time immemorial (or, generally, since around March when the weather starts to get a bit nice and people think they'll start taking trips again) and they are oh-so-tired. 

To wit: the exchange I overheard in the Lindisfarne Gospels shop and experience entrance, where we'd gone looking for a bit of Viking history on the island - everywhere else having been a bit light and sniffy on the subject. 

"So, these are the real Lindisfarne Gospels in here?" asked a very English woman (no, not me) as she clutched her battered debit card (a day on this island is an expensive day) to her quaking bosom. Bravely asked, I thought, having recognised the glaze and twitch of the stout woman behind the counter and also having clocked the sign outside that said 'replicas'. There is an intake of breath and, as one, the entirety of the population in that space, including me, leaned forward for the answer...

"NOOOOOAH!" Came the roar of a woman asked that question just once too often in a 24 hour period. "Those are in London [she all but spat the word]! These are REPLICAS, like it says on the sign! But you can see allll on 'em pages 'ere. You can't in LONDON!"

At which point, I quietly put down the postcards and headed outside so I could laugh without having a replica holy book thrown at my head, so I missed finding out whether the customer paid up and went in anyway. I suspect she did. It's what the English do. 

And where was N? Leaning on a wall outside, eyes closed and wishing he was in a pub after having suffered through the castle and then the priory. To be fair, he enjoyed both but his stamina for old buildings and epic vistas is not quite as well trained as mine. I'm working on it. By the time we get back from Bruges later this year, he will also be able to show unlimited enthusiasm for flying buttresses and an unflagging determination to see one more gargoyle/Medieval masons mark. Or I'll have completely broken him and he'll refuse to go anywhere with me ever again, preferring to whimper quietly on his own at home, rocking gently back and forth, whispering "please don't tell me again why the Dark Ages is a misnomer". I'd say we're at the 50/50 possibility mark of him going either way at the moment. 

ANYWAY, back to Lindisfarne. The castle is a stunning piece of architecture and has been nicely done up by the National Trust who've employed their now-standard method of interpretation, printing bits of letters and diaries on to unlikely places. Here, their focus is on the early 20th Century and the members of the Bloomsbury Group who came here, particularly Lytton Strachey, who could be a bitchy little number when he wanted. I always wonder why people invited him anywhere. But there he is, snarking all over a tablecloth or a coat, wittily snarking no doubt, but snark nonetheless. He'd not have got to pudding stage at my house, much less been allowed to stay for weeks as he did here. 

But it is charmingly done, and we enjoyed it, although we (I) lamented the lack of information about residents and owners pre-1800 about from one timeline. We also enjoyed the sight of the staff running around like startled chickens when the fire alarm went off. The newest and youngest member of staff, poor lad, repeatedly asking his walkie-talkie "is this a fire alarm?" as if it were some sort of Delphic oracle. As both N and I have health and safety training under our belts and were the nearest responsible adult to him, we informed him that, yes it was a fire alarm, and his procedure right now should be to evacuate people. Yes, even the old lady determinedly doddering off in the wrong direction. 

On second thoughts, maybe never invite us anywhere? We can risk assess a scenario in our sleep. We are the most fun at parties. But at least you'll never be sued over a trip hazard. 

Luckily for all, it was a false alarm caused by someone vaping (what is the matter with these people?) under a smoke detector, and we were able to troop back in after a half-hour wait surrounded by glorious views. Quite the nicest fire alarm evacuation I've ever been involved in. There was much rejoicing when the all-clear was given. 

Then to the Priory, which contained a nice line of simple, hands-on activities (fit the task into the slot) for kids (and me), some nice finds and the most glorious architecture. That's really what you come here for. The sight of those towering arches, the broad sweep of the walls, the expanse of what would have been windows looking out over the sea. You can imagine easily how it would have felt to see these strange ships appear on the horizon, land. Those strange men in their furs, armed with axes that would wink maliciously in the sun, a completely pitiless band of warriors. Would they have been silent, or howling a war cry to the skies as they made their way up the dunes?

I couldn't tell you because there is No Viking History on the island. Despite the Vikings definitely having made history here. It is very strange. I've been told several times that I should go to Yorvik in York for my Viking fix. But I have been there and I have no need to see freshly-graduated students, the ink on their acting degrees still wet, stomping around the entrance asking "do ye be a witch?" in cod-rural accents ever again. 

Regardless, Lindisfarne is eerie and beautiful, strange and glorious all at the same time. I wish I could be there in winter, watching the storms rage around the ruins. One day. Maybe. There are other places to get in touch with my Viking ancestry after all. If I really wanted to.  

Two Take a Trip

As previously mentioned, N and I took a trip up to Northumberland the other week - our first holiday since Brighton last September and we were both feeling the need of it. Admittedly, I was more vocal in my need for it than he was, which is a good thing or we'd have just limped on. If there is one thing my Mum has taught me, it's that holidays need to be insisted on, and taken, with regularity. 

Unlike my Mum, I did not insist on the Seychelles (where my Dad once played pool with Michael Schumacher's bodyguards), but on Northumberland, a county I have loved since I stepped foot in it about 18 years ago, and where we have friends who had been saying "come and see us!" for about a year. 

So we packed some bags, handed keys over to the Kid, who was cat-sitting for us, and set out on what I anticipated would be a hideous journey as we were leaving on the day after a Bank Holiday. I have long refused to leave the house for several days either side of a BH on the grounds that the roads are chock full of drivers made crazy by the urge to get there-or-back-again in the shortest possible time. It only took one particularly long and winding journey for me to decide that it simply wasn't worth the candle. 

But, with one thing and another, this year, only this week was feasible, so I gritted my teeth, got behind the wheel and embarked on...a stress - and incident - free journey in which N navigated with aplomb (he is better than any sat nav in getting us out of lane closures and potential sitting-on-a-motorway-for-hours scenarios), and we arrived at Newbiggin by the Sea, which is exactly as it says on the town sign - by the sea, at exactly the time we'd planned to.

I have chalked this up to an early Christmas miracle.  

Exploring around after a much-needed tea at the cafe, we found the church on the cliff top, looking out to the sea, surrounded by graves that are being eroded by the storms, and those superlatively big skies that Northumberland is so good at. 

I mean, just look at it. Beautiful. I love the way it shifts and changes from moment to moment. 

Most of these were taken the next morning at around 7am when I decided to take myself off for a walk along the beach front before N, and the rest of the world, got up. There was just me and some dog walkers, plus one very hardy couple bobbing gently in the sea. I quite envied them, being only brave enough to dip my toes. There is something about the way the North Sea sucks and roars at the sand that makes me wary. But I do long to be brave one day. 

Still, the paddling was lovely, there is nothing like the feel of the sea rushing and foaming over your toes, sending a shock of cold whooshing up through your body. By the end of it, I'd thoroughly soaked the hem of my handmade (by me) skirt. 

I'd also collected 5 coke cans and bottles, 2 red bull cans and an assortment of 11 other bits of rubbish from the sand, deposited by the tide. In turn, I deposited them in the town recycling bin which had the legend "DRY recycling only!" What does that even mean? Did these count as dry now I'd shaken the sea water out of them? I decided they did. 

We spent that first day in Bamburgh with its castle on the high cliff above the sea. There was an aviation museum on site as well, full of incomprehensible information boards with tiny writing and complicated diagrams and models of planes that widows had "kindly donated after the sad death of their husband, Major Findle-bough Heetherstone-Pugh." I have been on the receiving end of those kind donations - "Eric was so keen for the museum to have them" - and let me tell you, each and every widow skips out with the relief of having got rid of "Eric's blasted models". It made me chuckle to see the same pattern being repeated. 

It was also full of men staring intently at sprockets Aiii6b to Eivx9h and multiple cogs and levers. Occasionally a family would wander in with their perplexed children, the female of the group doing a pretty sharp about turn to find the cafe while the male got that peculiar eye glaze and rate of breathing that men get in museums like this. 

My own male being on the mild side of this condition, I left him to it, preferring to watch the sea, imagining myself back to seeing the Vikings land at Lindisfarne (visible in the distance) and read up on my favourite legend - the Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heugh. My favourite mainly because it's so pleasing to say. The title has a nice bounce and rhythm to it. Also because, as a child, I was very taken by the notion of the castle by the sea and that giant poisonous worms could be placated by milk. 

After the castle, we popped into the Grace Darling Museum, which was splendid. Oh my word. Ignore the castle (overpriced and a little patronising) and head here instead, give it the money you would have spent on castle admission as a donation. It Is Good. Renovated a few years ago (grant money from the HLF), it's still small but perfectly formed with the poignant details of Grace's life well told. Letters written by her, the shawl she wore during the rescue. The actual boat (coble) she and her father set out in. 

It had a lovely line in interactives (something of a bug bear of mine, having seen too many swish tech options consigned to basements, broken after only a handful of months and too expensive to repair), where you pushed a button and it lit up a tiny figure such as Grace's father mending the nets, or her mother teaching the children. 

Best best best of all, there was the challenge of setting the lighthouse light glowing. You had to select the 5 essential tasks in sequence; once successful, the light at the top of the 4-foot-high replica in the middle of the display lit up and flashed around the whole room. There were genuine cries of joy and delight when people managed to do this, me included. Yes, this cynical old museum professional was charmed.  

Then, the coast road back to Newbiggin, winding through little villages, listening to the sea through the open windows. Getting lost a few times but keeping our tempers because it was all so wide and beautiful, familiar and strange. 

We did the things you are supposed to do on holiday - eat chips on the beach - and some of the things that you're not - write a quiz that should have been written before we left. We puzzled over hilariously divisive public art and soothed our sunburn under the wonderful rainfall shower (an absolute plus point of our Air BnB). 

 

Next time, the story of the Lindisfarne Gospels gatekeeper and little Dink's Great Adventure. 

A Found Thing

I had a bit of a blogging break recently as I rushed to get some work finished up before we went away. There was work that I'd not managed to do because the heatwave knocked me for six and other work that was fast approaching a deadline and more work that had been put aside because I'd got carried away helping a client set up an exhibition. 

Actually, the latter made me realise that, whilst the freelance life suits me, I do miss the energy and buzz of being in a museum, working towards a common goal, rather than sat solo in my little office, tapping silently away. It's nice to have a taste of it every now and then. So now, once a week, I catch the train into Gloucester and work and chatter and plan and help out. It's a lot of fun and very good for my soul. 

Last week we made an escape up to Northumberland, that beautiful county full of moors, hills, woodlands and beaches. Ruined castles staring moodily out to sea. Viking lore. Big brooding skies that stretch over wide empty sands. Hills turning slowly purple as the heather flowers. Yeavering Bell. Lindisfarne. The Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heugh. Grace Darling and the heaving North Sea. Corned beef pasties. Craster kippers. I'll blog more about it next time. 

The week has helped to reset my head and revive my energy. Grief is a strange, shifting thing that, this year, has made me mostly sad (as opposed to last year's incandescent anger) and feeling as though joy might have been locked up forever. I could find enjoyment in the moment of things, but that pure joy, with its giddy laughter and keen eye for nonsense, had gone. 

Or rather, not gone but hiding. Time away, some spent with good friends, and the absolute determination that I would not go through life joyless, found it for me again. I'm very grateful. 

And also grateful for the shift from August to September that occurred while we were away. There has been much-welcome rain. Dew on the ground. Stripy spiders creating complex and beautiful webs right across the very path you need to walk down. Socks are required once more and I had to, brace yourselves, Put A Cardigan On last night. When Mabel comes in at night, she is no longer dusty from lying under bushes, but speckled with water from damp grasses. The smell of the air is different and I can feel my lungs opening up to it. 

The Kid looked after both house and cats extremely well. So well that neither cat bothered to get up when we got back. Actually, that's their standard behaviour. The house was clean (we had given him 4 hours warning of our return) - even the bins had been emptied - and I think he'd seen it as a bit of a holiday for himself too. It is hard: at 24 you don't want to go on holiday with your Mum and her partner necessarily, but you can't always afford to go by yourself. Have decided to put the offer in of a break regardless and see what he says. 

A stay away always makes me think back to my stint in hospitality, over 25 years ago now. How I took pleasure in making sure guests had everything they needed so that the first thing they could do was kick off their shoes, make a cup of tea and just sit for a while in a chair that held them like a hug. I wanted them to say "oh it is good to be here." 

What does not make people say that is making them track down the nearest supermarket for milk the minute they arrive, or expecting them wrestle with a coffee machine/kettle that needs a NASA degree to operate and then sit on a sofa that fair rattles the bones. Luckily, we were only there for a couple of nights before moving on to our Friends in the North.

I think self-catering providers should be made to stay in their own properties for a month before letting paying guests in. Trust me, once I rule the world, that will become law. 

N starts uni on Monday and is keeping a very careful lid on how nerve-wracking he's finding the notion of returning to education. Rationally, we both know he'll be absolutely fine. Irrationally, I'm fighting the urge to make him a packed lunch and iron him a clean handkerchief. 

Later today, I shall take myself off to the allotment to see what it's been up to during my absence. Hopefully there will be more damsons on the wild trees for me to scrump on the way back. I'm going to make a hearty risotto full of mushrooms and garlic. I'm going to put on fresh bedding that carries the smell of autumn with it. I'm going to soak for a long time in the bath and remove the summer peach polish from my toenails. I'm going to book tickets for See How They Run. 

But first, I'm going to savour being back in my little office, tapping solo at my laptop, In Our Time teaching me new things at a low volume, gently closing the window against the sound of the aggressive needless lawn-cutting going on outside. It's good to be back.