We were only in Northumberland for a week, but we crammed a lot in, such that I only wrote about half the week in last week’s blog post.
The second airb&b was just outside Morpeth, it was a lovely quiet place out in the sticks, more spacious than the first with a well-fitted kitchen, and good views of the sunset. This was a good base that we would use again, and we probably would have been better staying there three nights instead of two.
We ended up going into Morpeth on leaving the airb&b. It is a smallish town that we had always driven past in the campervan, not fancying trying to park it nor leave the dog in it on hot days. It had long been on my “to visit list”. It turned out to be smaller than I’d envisaged and less of the art / craft shops that I thought it had – Covid? wrong part of town? But it was probably just as well, as we were planning on going to Wallington en route to Hayden Bridge for our last three nights.
It did seem to have rather a lot of hairdressers and nail bars, how they all survive I don’t know. We did find a good place for a late cooked breakfast for Colin, and I opted for a homemade burger which was very good.
It was another beautiful, warm sunny day, and we went on to the National Trust’s Wallington. We were longer here, having arrived early afternoon, but still ran out of time without seeing everything. We spent a long time in the house, the staff / volunteers were very friendly and knowledgeable.
The house was much less formal than many stately homes, being home to the Trevelyan family, socialists and unconventional, but very comfortable and liveable. The central hall had been an open courtyard, but was roofed in the 1850s. It had beautiful murals of flowers on the pillars and around the walls, with more formal paintings between them. I especially loved the foxgloves.
The library here was very well stocked, and if only you were allowed to touch and read the books we could have spent even longer in there. It did have another room with comfy places to sit, and books that you could pick up and browse, and we would have spent longer in there if we hadn’t been given a 15 minute warning of the house closing and we still hadn’t seen the room with the Cabinets of Curiosities.
A whistle-stop look, and quick photos to be able to read and look at later. Natural objects fascinate me and it’s quite reassuring to know that other people are intrigued by them too, and can’t resist collecting them. Many of them didn’t photograph well as they were behind glass to protect them, and the lights reflected off the glass.
Once we left the house we were asked if we’d been to the walled garden. No. We were told we must see it. But Colin decided he’d walked enough for one day, so went to find somewhere to sit while I went to look. I’d been told it was 15 minutes walk through the woods, it certainly took me longer, partly as I kept getting distacted by various things including a chainsaw carving done after storm Arwen.
There was a beautiful metal archway……..
……… and a line of ducks in the lake…….
…….. not to mention the flowers and insects in the walled garden.
I only walked around the edge of the garden, barely touching on it; the garden alone really needs a whole day.
I spotted an owl in the woods on my way back.
It had chilled off a bit by then, and I couldn’t see Colin when I got back near where I’d left him.
Fortunately I’d left him with my fleecy-lined jacket, and found him hidden under the tree.
There was just time for hot drinks and a bit of cake, before yet again being the last to leave. Then we took the pretty route on to Hayden Bridge, getting there shortly before dark.
It seems that it’s around ten years ago that I, and several folk I have followed, started our blogs. Some, like myself, have been erratic over the years on regularity, or changed platforms for various reasons, whilst others have consistently posted over the years.
Alex, who nominated me for this bit of fun blog award, is one. It has been good to follow her artistic development over the years, and to have become real friends as well as on-line ones.
These five questions were posed.
1. What would my perfect holiday be? Family, friends, fun and food, not necessarily in that order. We have had many wonderful holidays spent with our German, Spanish and French friends, doing the things I enjoy most. Walking, talking and eating. Exploring new places, either camping or in the camper van, staying with the friends or them staying here (we always treat their visits here as holidays). Going to exhibitions, art and craft galleries, museums, cathedrals, National Trust and English Heritage sites, gardens, coast lines, countryside and sunsets (mainly hidden by the woods where we live). I’ve never been one for lying on a beach or at the side of a pool. Holidays are for visiting new places; even when we go to Barcelona, we always go to see new spots as well as revisiting old favourites. The Sagrada Familia is constantly changing, anyway.
Ironically we collected the camper van 16 years ago today, from Beryl, an old family friend. After her husband Barry died, she was no longer going to use it. We have had some fantastic holidays in it, exploring and touring parts of this country, many for the first time. Miles was always happier to be able to take Truffle, our black Labrador, than to leave her even with my dad or friends. It also ensured plenty of long walks, until her last few years, when Miles and I would take her for short walks, then leave her with Colin reading, writing, listening to music or cooking in the van while we went exploring. It suited us all for many years. It no longer fits since Colin damaged his shoulder several years ago, and me breaking my arm last year. The van doesn’t have power-assisted steering, so it’s too heavy for either of us to drive. Hopefully a young friend and her husband and family are going to have it, and will have as much pleasure and fun with it as we did.
14th May 2005, Beryl, Miles and meSagrada FamiliaSagrada Familia
As well as eating out, we like to buy local produce and cook ingredients that are less readily available at home. The market on Las Ramblas in the very centre of Barcelona, with its beautifully displayed produce, is as much a feast for the eyes as the stomach. Although another one, only a short walk from our friend Marisa’s flat, is relatively recently refurbished, is very good and less distance to carry home the shopping.
La Boquería, BarcelonaLa BoqueríaLa BoqueríaSunset from campsite in North WalesAnother night, same campsite in North Wales
2. Where is my favourite place to walk? I do love to walk on beaches, but I’m very lucky in that my favourite place to walk is Broughton Woods, less than five minutes from home. It was one of the things that attracted us here in 1990, not that we walked in there until after we moved here. It was almost a daily occurrence for more than 20 years while we had a dog, first Nellie a golden retriever, then later Truffle. One of the pluses of lockdown has been to walk in there several times a week, something I’ve not done for several years. It is constantly changing with the time of year, season, weather and light, so there are always different things to spot. However, the familiarity is a constant, and it’s reassuring that life goes on in spite of Covid, politics and the world’s tribulations.
Broughton Woods
3.What inspired me to start a blog? A combination of things from what I remember (July 2011). I’d just finished my first year as a mature student doing a degree in Contemporary Fine Art Practice at Hull School of Art and Design, and one of the modules in the theory aspect for the start of the second year was to do a blog. Knowing the problems I have with computer based things, I thought it would be good to get started before I had to hit the ground running. Also I was involved with the local artists’ open studio event (“insight”) at the end of September, and thought it would be a good way of promoting myself. Also it would be a good way of keeping a record of the artistic and creative work and the activities I was doing.
I haven’t kept it going for the whole ten years. There were times when life got in the way, coupled with the frustrations of writing and adding photos, and for the whole post to disappear into the ether with no way of getting it back. This happened for quite a while, because the platform just didn’t seem compatible with Apple products at the time, so in the end I gave up.
I did have similar problems when I first resurrected it at the start of lockdown, but time wasn’t so pressing then. I also had the problem of a broken dominant arm, so had the chance to persevere. It has put some pattern on my week, and encouraged me to do creative things so I would have something to blog about. I’ve managed to post every Friday since the start of lockdown, and plan to continue. Several months ago, I started to post on Instagram (also ‘debbidipity’) on a daily basis, which again I’ve found helps focus on creativity in some form or another.
4.What did I miss most during lockdown? Relatively simple things: eating and stitching with friends. Pre-Covid there were few weeks we didn’t eat with friends, either in our or their homes, sitting round the table usually over home-cooked food, the varying specialities of different friends, comfortable enough with one another not to worry if something didn’t quite work, there were always enough other things to fill up on. The German friends actually request my disaster puddings, not that they are repeatable as it’s usually that I got distracted and was never quite sure what had been missed out or added at the wrong time. The camaraderie and the banter that goes with good friends, it’s just not the same over the internet, much that it has helped get us through this time.
The stitching was not just the stitching, but the talking that went alongside it, the putting the things going on in our lives in perspective, the mutual support over problems, the listening ears, the sharing of experiences, the laughing, the broadening of ideas and inspiration, the encouragement when the project wasn’t quite working out.
5.What was the last book I read? My reading has been somewhat strange over lockdown. I normally do a shift in the local community library each week, which is completely run by volunteers. Books ‘fall’ off the shelves into my hands, something catches my eye, a title, an author, the font or illustration, it happens in book shops too. I rarely know what I’m looking for, a book just ‘speaks’ to me. Sometimes when I read the blurb it just doesn’t appeal and it goes back on the shelf.
I have only been in the library in the next little town three times since March 2020, (ours hasn’t re-opened yet). Once was just before Christmas when I’d noticed the lights on, and on sticking my nose in had been told I could browse. I came home with nearly twenty books, only picking up ones I was pretty sure I’d want. My best Christmas present, choosing books again. I quarantined them for 72 hours, which is what they were doing with returns in the library. I was so excited, like a kid waiting for Santa, waiting to take them out of the bag and have a proper rummage. I was just in time before it was locked down again.
A couple of weeks ago, it re-opened again and I came away with a fresh pile, a few familiar names, Joanna Trollope, Joanne Harris, Jojo Moyes, and some that the covers jumped out for one reason or another, including “The reading cure, how books restored my appetite” by Laura Freeman; the blurb sounded promising too.
BlurbLibrary book
The cure it’s talking about is recovery from anorexia, not that I realised in the library, nor something that I was ever likely to suffer from; I enjoy my food far too much. But it is well written and describes how when Laura, at age 14, was too weak to go to school. She read and read, and read, and gradually started to eat again, having read about other people eating as part of the narrative, first in Dickens.
She started to increase her range of food, as well as the minute quantities she ate, as she worked her way through different authors writing about food, including favourites of mine, Laurie Lee and Elizabeth David. I’m only about half way through so far, but as well as describing various dishes and how to prepare some of them, it is also introducing authors, their books, some travel, artists’ paintings of food, a lovely description of a still-life of Monet of “galettes des pommes”. I’ll investigate further some of the authors she writes of, Mary Francis for one. All in all, so far I have found it informative, inspiring and it is increasing my appetite to step out there and begin to do the things I enjoy as Covid restrictions are lifted.
Most of the bloggers I have followed in the past no longer blog, except Alex, Rachel, and Amanda who have already done the award. If either of the two below want to take up the challenge, it’s just for a bit of fun.
debbidipity 