Landed Safe

We travelled back from our camping holiday in Northumberland today, and though we were sad to leave, we were glad to get back home to “normal” again.

We left a bit of pale grass behind us

All ready to hit the road

The journey itself was tedious because there was so much traffic and we got stuck in no less than 5 traffic jams along the way. If we were just driving (not towing), we would exciter the journey to take about 3 hours. With towing, we expected closer to 4 hours, but a grand total of SEVEN hours later, we rolled home at last.

Wagons roll

It has been a fantastic time away, but I’m glad to be sleeping in my own bed tonight after having a shower in my own bathroom. It’s funny what luxuries we take for granted at home, and though it’s nice to experience different things away, it’s livening to be back.

I’m going to tackle the 120+ emails waiting for me on the morning whilst working my way through the mountain of washing we’ve brought back. Happy days!

Grace and peace,

Pamster x

Holiday – Last Day

We’re going to be heading home tomorrow after a fabulous time in Northumberland, and today was our last day. We didn’t do much of anything really, other than drink tea and do some puzzles. And nap.

We did go down to the beach for one last look at Bamburgh before we go, and here are some of my photos taken down there tonight. The one with the rainbow is genuine – this rainbow was stunning to watch develop and grow as the clouds moved overhead.

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It’s amazing what simple fun you can have on an empty beach at sunset

Speaking of which, we were treated to a wonderful setting sun tonight. It was a glorious sight and has sent us to bed happy and fulfilled this evening. God is good and his creation is wonderful.

Sunset from the dunes at Bamburgh

And so the sun has set on this year’s wonderful holiday. I’ve been truly blessed to have had this time and opportunity to rest, refresh, recharge and re-evaluate what life’s all about. It has been a roller-coaster July this year, what with a major birthday (I turned 50), a major life event (I was ordained deacon), and a major wedding anniversary (I’ve been married to my husband for 30 years this year) within the space of three weeks, and each one of those events has been emotional for their own special reasons. This time away from home has helped deal with the emotional stuff from all three of those events as well as thinking about the things we’ve all been living through with covid since March last year. I’ve enjoyed saying Morning Prayer with Kevin each morning while we’ve been here, and I feel refreshed and ready to restart ministry again after tomorrow.

I hope you have enjoyed following the exploits of our break in Northumberland this year, and I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of the different things we’ve got up to while we’ve been here. Thank you for sticking with me these past 11 days, and thank you for all your lovely comments and suggestions for our time up here. I’m sorry we didn’t get to see Pippilongstockings, the dog who walks backwards, but hopefully on our next trip the invitation to call for a brew is still open!

Love and light,

Pamster x

Holiday – Day 10: Boat Trip

I have been looking forward to today’s boat trip ever since we booked it on our first day last week. I love the sea and I’m fascinated by the Farne Islands so it made sense to book one of the boat trips from Seahouses to go out and see them while we were here. And it was absolutely fantastic!

We boarded at about 2pm and set off on the Glad Tidings VIII from the harbour and headed out towards the Inner Farne islands first. To be honest, the sea was a little bit choppy and I felt a bit sick as we got going in the open sea. I learned a good trick from a previous boat trip in that when you feel seasick like that, just find a fixed point and focus on that. The horizon is good if there are no lighthouses or rocks to see, and trust me, it works. As your body bobs up and down, your eyes remain on the fixed point and it reduces that sense of motion and helps regulate your response to seasickness.

It didn’t take long to adjust though, and by the time we arrived at the first of the islands, I was feeling pretty much ok again.

The nesting season is over now so there were no puffins to be seen, but there were lots of other sea birds on and around the rocks – guillemots (who gave us a fantastic fly-past demonstration as we sailed round the islands), cormorants, Arctic terns, sandwich terns, other terns (which I can’t remember the names of now), kittiwakes and others. The best bits for me were seeing the seals as they either basked on the rocks, or came up to the boat to say hello in the water. They are like aquatic versions of dogs, with their intelligent eyes and inquisitive nature.

We saw the lighthouse from where the local heroine Grace Darling launched a brave rescue of the survivors from a shipwreck in a storm. She rowed backwards and forwards ferrying them to shore through the night, and her bravery continues to be recognised today. You can find out more about Grace’s story here.

From these little islands we then headed over to Lindisfarne, and we got a very different view of the island from the sea from the one that we normally see, which is from the causeway on the other side. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I absolutely adore this island and could happily spend all my days here forever more.

We had a pot of tea and a wander about before heading back to the boat to bring us back to Seahouses. I called in St Mary’s church on the way back to the harbour, just as Evening Prayer was finishing. I stayed for a short time of prayer, then caught up with the others who were already on the harbour path.

On the way back to Seahouses, the captain invited those who wanted to go up to the front of the boat, “for some fresh air”, as he comically called it. There was quite a swell on the return journey and though I leapt at the chance to go and take some clear photographs from the front of the boat, my legs felt like they belonged to someone else…. and someone else who was a bit drunk, trying to walk the wrong way on the waltzers. It was worth the struggle to walk though because I got a stunning view of Bamburgh Castle as we passed it. Like the view of Lindisfarne, it looks an entirely different prospect when you see it from the sea. It is a huge, massive, imposing structure when you see it from the land, but blimey, from the sea it is like a fortress. No wonder it was so successful in defending the north of England from invaders when it was built.

You’ll have to forgive me my comedy hair-do…. It hasn’t been straightened in nearly a fortnight and I forgot to bring my hairdryer with me so it has been drying naturally while we have been away. That, coupled with the sea spray, has sculpted it into this confection of curls today. I can’t wait to get home and a) dry it with a hairdryer and straighteners, and b) have it cut!

Anyway, scary hair-do aside, the experience at the front of the boat was fantastic and the uninterrupted views of Bamburgh, Seahouses and the shoreline were beautiful. The movement of the boat was easier to manage from there too – I wonder if it was something to do with the fact that all my attention was taken up with trying not to get bounced overboard as the boat pitched and rolled?!

Back on dry land, and with our sea legs left behind on the harbour wall, we headed to the fish and chip restaurant at the top of the harbour slipway – Neptunes – and tucked into fish and chips, bread and butter, and a pot of tea. Delicious.

It has been a great day today, and the experience at the front of the boat is one I’ll treasure for a long time to come. There is something about being at the mercy of the sea, albeit in a small way because we were only ever only a couple of miles from land, that brings it home to me just how vulnerable and insignificant we are. Watching the families of seabirds nesting on the rocks on the islands, and watching the seals lazing about or slipping into the water when they felt like it, reminds me that us humans share this planet with the whole of God’s creation, it’s not there just for us. The magnificent flight of the guillemots as they skimmed the surface of the water is another reminder of God’s touch being in everything and on everything that we see. It is literally breathtaking when we consider too that human beings have been occupying the land round here for over 10,000 years, and some parts of where we’ve been today have only ever had a couple of dozen feet walking on them in all that time. The Farne Islands belong to God’s sea birds and other sea creatures, and us humans have to make do with being remote observers for most of the time.

I’m settling into my sleeping bag tonight thinking about the Saints Cuthbert and Aiden, and all those pilgrims who have made their quiet way to these parts for hundreds of years. I wonder what they would make of things today.

Grace and peace

Pam x

St Aiden

Holiday – Day 9

We visited Hay Farm today, a lovely little place on the Ford and Etal estate in Northumberland. It is a centre for Heavy Horses and it is part heritage centre, part museum, part working farm. We had seen signs for the farm each time we’d passed by that way for the last few days and we earmarked it out as a place to visit.

They had all sorts of things to do with farming on display, like the equipment used for ploughing and sowing, harvesting etc. My favourite item (apart from the animals, obviously) was this – a hearse!

I suppose you could say it was professional interest that piqued with this item, but look at the craftsmanship on those carvings. It was a bit dusty, but you can clearly see that some work and attention has gone into this piece of kit.

You can see from the photos that the farm has more than just big horses. I loved the piglets – they looked so comfy and snuggly all snoozing together there with mama, like a row of…. well sleepy pigs!

To be honest, it was the name “Hay Farm” that attracted me – how on earth can a farm be sustainable if it only produced hay?? The name actually doesn’t come from the crops it farms, but from a long and convoluted history that involves the land being in various hands over the generations. There are lots of information boards around the site that tell you about the history of the place and it makes for fascinating reading. The landowner at the time got involved in the battle of Flodden Field (see yesterday’s post) and even though he survived the battle, he died soon after and the farmland which is now Hay Farm was passed on to his son. It then became part of a wedding dowry, and it was passed on and split up a few times after that, before coming to be the heavy horse centre it is today.

The whole area round here is a kind of conservation-heritage area, with the local estates of Ford and Etal tied up with Heatherslaw and others to celebrate all things from the Paleolithic period right up to the modern day.

Speaking of which…

One of my favourite things when we pootle along country roads is spotting things on signposts or maps that are out of the ordinary and that could be something historical or plain old intriguing. We had passed a sign for “Maelmin” on the A697 a couple of times and there was something about it that caught my eye. It might have been the little graphic on the brown road sign that looked like Stonehenge that did it for me…

On the way back from Hay Farm, we turned off at the sign for Maelmin, to find a beautiful little plot of land that is a reconstructed Neolithic wood henge. We learned from the heritage boards around the site that the whole of this valley used to be where our Neolithic ancestors lived from about 5,000 years ago, right through to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors who lived here more recently. The earliest inhabitants here were hunter gatherers who lived a semi-nomadic life, moving around the area to follow where food stocks were plentiful as the seasons moved from one to another. There are lots of places around here where their mark is still seen, in the earthworks, barrows, henges and standing stones that they have left behind.

This site at Maelmin is one of three that has been recently reconstructed for heritage and education purposes in this area. The volunteers who created this henge here just outside Milfield did a “living history” project where they lived the lives of these people whilst they created a house/hut out of local materials, using the tools and skills that were available at the time. They worked in a team from the University of Newcastle to make it as authentic as possible.

We didn’t stay long because the sun was absolutely beating down and there was no shade or breeze to take the heat out of it, but we stayed long enough to experience the peace and tranquillity of the place and to imagine what life could have been like for those people who lived here all that time ago. However, there was something else that I wanted to see while we were here.

While I was looking at the OS map earlier this holiday, I noticed an area close to Wooler and Doddington that had lots of monuments marked on, with the words “cup and ring marked stones”. I haven’t seen these before and when I saw on one of the boards at Maelmin that there were some of these on the map, I suggested to the others that we go and hunt them out. We did try, honest, but I’d stupidly forgotten to bring the OS map out with us, and I didn’t think to take a photograph of the information board before we set off, and so we didn’t see them. I have looked up what they are, and dear reader, my interest is piqued even more now! I think we may be making a concerted effort to go and view some of these before we leave on Friday.

Cup and ring marked rocks – Weetwood Moor near Wooler

We have had a “wrong answer” quiz tonight back at the van, with much fun and laughing at some of the answers that we gave.

I’ll share the funniest with you. Question: “What is the name of the Scottish folk hero popularised by Sir Walter Scott? (3-3)”. Kevin’s answer: “Ben Hur”. I guess you had to be there to get how funny it was, but it tickled me and I keep going back to it and making myself laugh again.

We’re getting towards the end of our holiday now and we only have two full days left before we hit the road with our wobbly boxes and head back home. We have a boat trip planned for tomorrow, which I’m REALLY looking forward to, and Thursday is going to be a hunt for cup and ring marked stones day hopefully.

I’ll leave you with my favourite photo taken today.

View of Lindisfarne taken from the road up at West Keyloe on the mainland

Love and light,

Pamster x

PS – wrong answer quizzing is hilarious when you play properly; the answers have to be as close to the right answer as possible without being the right answer, but far enough away to be funny or witty. Good family fun!!

Holiday – Day 8

The weather has been much better today, and you will be pleased to know (I hope!) that the caravan roof and awning survived the torrential rain through the night and we weren’t blown away in any storms overnight.

We decided to go and visit Wooler today, which is about 30 minutes away from here. It was my turn to drive today, which I love, but it meant that I couldn’t take any photos as we travelled. To combat that, I kept stopping by the roadside now and again to take in the view and to snatch a couple of photos while I had the chance.

Wooler is a lovely quiet little village, and it has the usual sort of establishments you might expect in any English village – bakery, post office, pubs, cafe etc – but sadly, most of them seemed to be closed for business at the moment. Whether that is because of the pandemic or because trade is poor is for another blogger to comment on I guess, but it made me sad to think that this once bustling and thriving market town is in such marked decline today. We enjoyed walking down the High Street though, looking in the antique shop windows and such like, and we had a lovely spot of lunch in the Terrace Cafe.

From here, we decided to go and visit nearby Branxton, which is the village near where the battle of Flodden was fought in 1513. It was only about 15 minutes away, between Wooler and Coldstream, and we had a lovely pootle down the road to see what was what on the battlefield.

It’s a very eerie place to be honest, the battlefield, not the village. The Battle of Flodden was fought between the English and the invading Scots on 9th September 1513. The Scots were commanded and led by James IV, who was killed in this battle, and the English were led by the Earl of Surrey. We approached it from the side where the Scots were positioned prior to battle, and our first view of Flodden Field was from the ridge looking down to where the English were stationed.

From this viewpoint, looking towards the English at the bottom of the hill, the Scots would have felt fairly confident of a win here. But they didn’t see an approach from their right which included a group of archers, who literally tore into them and cutting them down. The rest of the Scots charged down the hill but got stuck in the boggy, marshy land at the bottom of the slope. It was a fairly straightforward thing then for the English to attack and overcome the Scots army who had become disbanded and disorganised in the chaos of the bog in front of them and the archers behind them.

Just as a side note here: I am from Blackley, in Manchester, which neighbours the town of Middleton just to the north. I have strong connections to Middleton because I worked there for many years and I played for Middleton Band for many years too. There are references to archers and archery all around the town, including the names of pubs and on its coat of arms etc, and you might well wonder why I would mention all of this in the middle of a blog post about Northumberland and Flodden Field. Well… The archers at the battle of Flodden included some archers from Middleton, under the banner of Sir Richard Assheton, who was their feudal lord. It is said that without the Middleton archers, the battle of Flodden would not have gone in England’s favour. History would have been different if James IV of Scotland had not died at this battle, and who knows how Henry VIII would have reacted if Stanley had lost here instead of coming away victorious??

Incidentally, there is a stained glass window in Middleton Parish Church which is dedicated to the Middleton Archers who fought at Flodden, and it is argued that this is the oldest war memorial in England. I have seen the window and it is beautiful.

We drove round to the other side of the battlefield then, to see where the English had stood and to see the memorial that has been erected there.

There is a small church just on the edge of the battlefield, where the body of King James IV is said to have been taken after the battle. The building that stands there now is largely a 19th Century rebuild and all that remains of the medieval church that saw the battle is the apse at the east end.

After the sobering visit to the battlefield we headed home, stopping for a cup of tea at Heatherslaw along the way.

We also did a bit of a detour, following our noses down one of the many little lanes that run between the A1 and the coastline. These photographs of Lindisfarne are taken from a little hamlet down one of these lanes, and you can see that where Kevin and I walked the other day on the Pilgrim’s Walk is completely under water. In fact, from this angle, it is quite frightening to see that the refuge towers that are there for stranded walkers or drivers barely clear the level of the sea. Up close, they seem to be way high in the sky, but when the tide is in and covering the causeway you can see that they are not too high at all.

After all that driving today we thought we’d have a little stroll after tea and headed off down the lane to see what we could see – and hear – as we walked. We scared some sheep in a field (didn’t mean to, they just got spooked by us walking past), and we heard a couple of unusual birds. Between us we could identify the blackbird and the robin, and the jackdaw and magpie, but we needed my bird identifier app on my phone to know that we heard and saw a yellowhammer, and we hard a pair of chiffchaffs in a hedge.

The last photograph of the day today was as the sun was sinking over the top of a ridge, and it kind of put a cherry on the day today. It’s been busy and eventful, and thankfully we dodged the showers enough so that we stayed reasonably dry.

I took a lot of photos today (there’s just a selection here because I don’t want to bore you too much!) but my favourite one has got to be this one of a tractor in the field being followed by a flock of seagulls. We could hear them squabbling and squawking before we could see them, but I just had to share this with you as it brings me so much joy.

I’m not sure what’s on the agenda for tomorrow, but whatever we do, it will probably be accompanied by lots of photos and cups of tea again. Bliss!

Love and light,

Pamster x

Holiday – Day 7

Today is Sunday and it began a bit early for me today: 6.15am to be precise. I felt a little unwell yesterday (a bad flare up of pain) and it carried on through to today and it got me up out of bed at silly o’clock, just as (another) rain storm was finishing. I sorted myself out and went back to bed again, fully intending to go to St Aidan’s Church in Bamburgh for the morning service. But I didn’t wake up until nearly 10am, by which time it was too late to go. I’m disappointed because one of the things I look forward to on holiday is visiting local churches to experience worship with different congregations.

And to be honest, apart from a quick trip down to Alnwick for some groceries and toiletries today, we’ve not done that much all day. The weather has been atrocious throughout the day, with huge deluges of rain falling at regular intervals, and so it hasn’t been a day to go anywhere to sightsee today. The others were all happy to stay on site doing their own thing (napping, puzzle booking, knitting, repairing the caravan roofing….) and so the slow start and the rain-filled day meant a relaxing day all round.

I didn’t take many pictures today, but this sequence here was taken on the way back up the A1 on the way home from the supermarket. Alnwick was dry and humid when we were there, and the roads were all dry – a huge contrast to the weather we’d left behind at the campsite! On the way home again, I was struck by how quickly the weather changed and you can see from these photos, which were taken over a 5 minute interval, how much it went from dry to stormy to torrential in almost the blink of an eye. We were literally driving into the edge of a weather front and it was spectacular to witness. The rain was so bad though that we actually missed our turning off the A1. It is a turning we must have made about 50 times now in all the times we have been camping here, but because of the poor visibility, we missed it completely.

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Don’t worry, I was in the passenger seat and didn’t take these whilst driving!

Usually along this stretch, the sea is visible to the right, with the fields in between all glowing with their yellow crops when they are bathed in sunlight. But today? Nope. Couldn’t even see the fields, let alone any crops or the sea beyond!

However, there was a small break in the weather when we turned off the A1 (at the correct turning, eventually) heading back towards the campsite, and I managed to snap this from the window.

One of my favourite things about being on holiday is driving around the English (and Scottish!) countryside as the crops are coming towards harvest, and I love the contrast of colours on view. You can clearly see the stormy clouds here, but the colour of the crop is dulled and looks really sad here, and so the rain has had that kind of depressing effect even on the countryside today.

It is my aim one day to take the ultimate photograph of the countryside, which will show a tractor or harvester in a crop field, with green hedgerows and trees at the edges, under a deep blue sky with towering white clouds scattered about. The cherry on top of this image would be for the tractor/harvester to leave a trail of round bales of hay in its wake. There is something wholesome and cheerful about those rounded bales of hay that really stir something in my soul when I see them. I don’t know why they do that, and I’ve been disappointed so far this year to have seen only one single, solitary field of these round bales all week. Usually by now, this area is teeming with them and I wonder if it’s either that the harvest isn’t ready yet, or it is has been and gone? Maybe I should stay here for another couple of weeks to see them start to appear?!

And when I say ‘photograph’, I would not only love to take a still picture of this idealised image I’ve got in my mind, but also paint it on a big canvas to hang in our house. I dabble with paint now and again, and I would love to be good enough to tackle a large-scale image like the one in my mind one day. I’d settle for a photo first though.

It’s nearly bed time here on the campsite, and the rain has started again. It sounds pretty heavy on the awning roof now and I wonder how many times we’ll have to push the water off during the night? Mum and Dad stayed behind this afternoon while we nipped to the supermarket, and the rain was so heavy that it brought down one of the awning poles under the weight of water puddled on the roof. Dad managed to fettle the poles so that they were a bit tighter, and with the aid of a chopping board managed to stop the rain puddling in the worst corner. But the ground is waterlogged now and when we step down out of the van, we are stepping into mud and wet grass. It makes a delightful “plish” sound when I step on it and though that may be nice enough for kids when they are playing out in it, it’s not so pleasant to hear when I’m trying to get to the toilet block in the middle of the night!

We also had an ingress of water through the roof of the van, and Kevin has had to fettle a repair to the roof vent which had become broken at some point. It’s one of those where you squeeze the handle and push it up, and it can be tilted to one side or the other to let in air from either direction. Somehow or other it has snapped on the hinges on one side, and was hanging on by one screw on the other. He had to dismantle it, bring it inside, glue it, screw it and tie it down with string, before fixing it back in place again….all in the middle of a thunderstorm. For saying we’ve not been anywhere today, it has been an eventful one!

The forecast is for rain until Thursday now, but there is less chance of it being as heavy tomorrow as it has been today, so we have got tentative plans to visit Wooler tomorrow. We may go to Ford and Etal too, and we may visit the site of the battle of Flodden. I just hope that if it does rain we don’t end up sodden in Flodden…. Sorry for the atrocious pun there! Whatever we do, I’m sure that we will be cheerful about it and will come back with tales of an adventure to share with you.

Love and light

Pamster x

Holiday – Day 6: Berwick

We had a leisurely meander up the road to Berwick today. We’ve been there a few times before but it’s always nice to go and revisit somewhere where we’ve already been.

You’d think though, that having visited here before, we could find our way easily into the town centre. But no. Not today. For some reason we ended up going past the fire station three times, and over the big bridge four times before we got to where we thought we were heading to. I think my brain must have had a foggy moment or something because I was directing Kevin, and neither of us recognised where we were until we’d taken the wrong turning a couple of times. Anyway, we eventually found the car park we had been aiming for – another one in the fabulous Northumberland Disc Parking Scheme – and found a spot pretty easily along the bastion (more of that later).

We arrived just before dinner time so naturally the first stop was the chippy for some food. As I say, we’ve been here before so know exactly where to get the best chips from!

The portions here are very generous so we shared our food as we sat on a bench watching the world go by. In fact, we had a lovely chat with a lady outside as we waited for our food to be ready. She asked us if we were on holiday and we said, “yes, can you tell?”. Her answer was an absolute pearler… “I’ve not seen you before and I know everyone in this town, so I guessed you were on holiday!”.

After dinner, we had a bit of a wander down Marygate, which is the main high street in the town centre. We had a coffee in Cafe Nero, and had a chat with a couple of locals as I was taking pictures of the Town Hall Clock. One of them tried to pose for me even though I was aiming about 25 feet above his head, and his mate asked me why I was taking the picture of the clock. I don’t know why I said what I said, but I heard myself reply – “so I can remember what time it is later”. We laughed because it was so absurd and it was lovely to have a normal, if daft, conversation with a stranger on the street.

We spent some time on the bridge over the Tweed, talking about the need for ever greater and bigger structures as our society and need for transport grew. The railway bridge which carries the main east coast line into the station at Berwick is absolutely stunning. It is a magnificent feat of engineering by Robert Stephenson (son of George Stephenson, designer and builder of Rocket locomotive), and is a wonderful testament to the talent available at the time to create, build and decorate such a structure. The bridge is called the “Royal Border Bridge” and was opened by Queen Victoria in 1850. It only took 3 years to build, which is simply amazing when you think of the tools and machinery available then.

We wandered down through the town a bit more, before heading back up towards where the parish church is. The warden was just locking up as we arrived so we didn’t get to go in, but we read all the bumf outside the gates and learned that the church is unique because it was the only church built during Cromwell’s “reign”. It is also the most northerly English parish church, being so close to the Scottish border.

We then walked up along the bastion, which is where the town’s defences were manned during the medieval period and beyond. During its history, Berwick has been under English rule, then Scottish rule, then English again as various wars and hostile campaigns fought over it. Berwick is in a prime location and has lots of natural resources to draw on, making it one of the wealthiest towns in the country, and so was seen as a valuable asset by whichever side was not in control of it at the time. In fact, so chequered and patchy is the history of Berwick that it is only recently that its identity has been fixed as English.

Now this bastion thing is a strange construction. It is basically a large earthwork that runs along two sides of a square round the town, joining up with the medieval town walls to form the other part of the square. It has gone through different stages of construction and alteration, and during the Elizabethan period was designed to house canons and guns that fired on any enemy that dared approach the town. From the top, you can look right out to sea, and towards the south the island of Lindisfarne is visible. It was pretty windy up there and there were a few spots of rain threatening, so we didn’t spend too long at the sea edge.

Before we went back to the car, we spent some time on top of the bridge over Marygate. This part of the bastion is called “Scot’s Gate” and it marks a line between the old town and the new. At some point in history, this was an important boundary, and it was heavily guarded by soldiers and militiamen to keep any potential trouble out of the town. I took a better photo of Marygate from up here, looking down towards the Town Hall again. You might recognise the view from an L S Lowry painting from the same angle. He’s a local artist, born near where I live, but he loved Berwick and used to come up here to spend his holidays away from the grit and grime of Salford.

Here’s a selection of other photos from round the town today. Can you see the bear and the wych tree which have come to signify Berwick? This emblem appears all over the town and shows up in all sorts of places. This one is in the stonework over the Police Station.

The rain has settled in again now and it looks like it is in for the night. I hope the bad weather that is forecast still for tomorrow doesn’t transpire. Every day now for the last three or four days the weather has supposedly been forecast to be bad, and apart from the two epic downpours yesterday in Melrose, we have just had pretty much normal weather for this time of year and in this location. We’re hardy campers and so are used to a bit of rain, so when the forecasters were giving us yellow warnings, we were seriously considering whether to stay or not. I’m glad we did because had we listened to them, we would have missed out on a couple of cracking days up here in Northumberland.

Tomorrow is Sunday – I wonder what the day will bring? I hope and pray it brings you joy and peace in whatever you do.

Love and light,

Pam x

Holiday – Day 4: Pilgrim Walk

We had a bit of a different experience today, and walked the end of St Cuthbert’s Way from the mainland onto the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

We waited until the earliest opportunity when the tide had gone out to set off, and Dad dropped Kevin and me off at the head of the causeway while he and Mum went ahead to wait for us on the island. I wanted to walk it barefoot, partly for practical reasons (I don’t have any wellies) and partly for spiritual reasons (we were walking on holy ground).

The weather was extremely changeable as you can see from the photographs, but we were confident that it wouldn’t put us off. There seemed to be lots of people with the same idea as us and as we got to the point on the causeway where the pilgrim walk diverges, there were quite a number of people hopping about taking their walking boots and socks off. I felt rather smug, having just braved the first half mile or so on the tarmac with no shoes on at all, and I got straight on with the walk on the lovely soft sand. Kevin kept his boots on, a decision that he came to regret later…

Whenever we have driven onto Lindisfarne before, the empty seabed to either side of the causeway has always looked exactly that – empty. But now that we have walked it I now know that it is teeming with life even though it looks so serene and still. Our walk was accompanied by the sounds of curlew, oystercatchers, sand pipers and sand martins as well as the more usual herring gulls and other seagulls, and closer to the island we could hear the otherworldly sounds of the seal colony just off the seashore. I could see them but I didn’t realise that the strange sound I could hear was actually them.

We talked to quite a few people as we travelled, some going the same way as us and some coming from the opposite direction. It was so lovely to exchange some pleasant words with folks as we walked along. I took quite a few photographs, some of which are below, and it was absolutely joyful and uplifting to see the way that the light kept changing as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds overhead.

There was one particularly tricky point where I started to get a bit worried that the shallow water we had previously been walking in became deeper and deeper, to the point where I actually thought that the tide was coming in again. We were nearing one of the two “rescue” stations along the route, which are basically wooden platforms raised up in the air by about 15 feet or so. They are there in case any unsuspecting (or careless) walker is taken by surprise with the tide coming in and they have ladders so they can climb up to either await rescue, or sit out the tide and save themselves some embarrassment. At the stage where I was starting to worry, the water was up around my knees. Kevin was on a slightly different track from me and was in shallower water, but even so, the water was still threatening to cover the tops of his boots.

And here’s the strange thing. Just as I was about to speak up and say to Kevin that I thought we’d made a mistake, and that the tide was coming in after all, a huge rainbow appeared over the island, with the end of it landing directly on the priory to our right. It literally took my breath away and as I stood in amazement at it, I realised that the deep water was at an end, and we were back on (more or less) dry land. It put me in mind of that other time when a rainbow and dry land were linked together, and it made me think that even though we may be in dangerous deep water, God is with us figuratively and literally.

The route across the seabed to the island went over a few different types of ground – soft sand, running water, seaweed caked mud, deep and tarry mud that looks solid (it isn’t…. see photo below), rocks, shale etc – and because I’d chosen to go barefoot, I enjoyed all of the different experiences the different textures gave me. Well, all except the popping seaweed, that was weird. But again, the different type of surface that we walked on is a reminder of the figurative “different ground” I walk on as a minister in the Church of England. There’s more reflecting to be done on that, and no doubt at some point a sermon or theological reflection will be written on it.

And like all journeys, there came a point where I thought I couldn’t go on. My back and my hip were hurting, I thought I’d cut my foot on a broken shell, there was nowhere dry to put my backpack if I took it off etc etc, and I called for a stop at the next post. We rested a little, had some nuts and raisins out of our “emergency rat packs”, had some water, and with a renewed sense of “nearly there”, set off again. All the of the people that were on the pilgrim’s route with us had all disappeared ahead of us, and there was nobody following us behind. We were alone on the seabed, with only the birds and the seals to keep us company. I remember talking to Kevin about liminal spaces at that point, how land and sea become indistinct and could be either or neither at the same time, and we realised that that is what this walk had been all about. It had been a liminal experience all round, in that it was practical yet spiritual at the same time. We were walking, but hindered by the natural elements of slippery mud, running water, wind and rain. We had been on land, but in another couple of hours time, this “land” would be occupied by the sea again. Our footprints would be wiped clean and it would be as if we hadn’t been there at all.

Once we had got through that stage though, the journey was nearly over. It had been nearly 3 miles long and it had taken us about 2 hours to complete it. We probably would have done it a lot quicker if it hadn’t have been for me stopping to take photographs and to stretch out my back. But to my mind, this is a walk that ought to be savoured and enjoyed for the experience it brings, not to get across as quickly as possible. If we wanted to get to the island before the shops shut we would have driven over in the car with my Mum and Dad! This was most definitely a walk to experience, not simply to just do.

As we drew to the end of the route, I could see my Mum and Dad waiting for us on the bench at the end of the causeway. Dad had made a brew for us – a taste of heaven! – and we got cleaned up and dried off ready to head back home for fish and chips.

It was a superb experience, and one that I will treasure for a long time to come. I feel like I’ve walked with God today, and it feels wonderful to have trodden in the same footsteps as millions of fellow pilgrims over the last 1500 years or so. And to do it on the feast day of St Oswald, King of Northumbria, has made it all that more extra special.

Grace and peace,

Pam x

Holiday – Day 3

I had to check this morning what day it was – it is Wednesday, right?! Don’t answer… I had to check again at teatime.

The aim of relaxing and unwinding this holiday is being reached minute by minute that we’re here. We spent another fairly quiet day today, mainly on site, but with a little bit of travelling at dinner time and after tea this evening. The weather forecast had been we would have seen storms and a definite drop in temperature today, but none of that transpired at all. The closest to a storm we got was at about 1pm a huge cloud covered the sun for about 15 minutes when we were in Alnwick, and then when we got back to the campsite at about 4pm with the plan to have a little bit of a bike ride, the wind got up and it felt like a storm could be approaching. But apart from about an hour of high winds and a bit of cloud, that was it.

So what did we get up to today?

Well, I needed to get a new toothbrush. The one I’d brought (new) is a different type than the one I usually use and to cut a long and very boring story short, it wasn’t doing the job. The Co-op in Seahouses didn’t have any and so we decided to go and visit the big supermarket in Alnwick instead. We went there at about lunchtime and after finding a toothbrush (hurrah!) we headed into the town centre to find a butty shop for some dinner. The parking scheme up here is absolutely amazing. You can park in any of the “disc-zone” car parks (which are everywhere) so long as you display a special disc from the council. The car parks all have different time limits on them, but they are very generous and allow you ample time to park, do your business/sight seeing and then get back to the car without the risk of a ticket or it being clamped. We left our previously bought disc in the caravan by accident, so had to get a new one. And here’s the beauty of this scheme – nearly every other shop on the high street and round the car parks sell these discs, at a princely sum of (wait for it…..) a pound. Yes, that’s correct. A parking disc costs £1 and it allows you to park pretty much wherever and whenever you like anywhere that supports the scheme, which is nearly everywhere. It is amazing! It’s almost as if Northumberland council people actually want visitors to come and buy things from the local shops, and for local people to actually want to support their local businesses. It really is a cracking scheme, but I can see why other councils don’t want to copy it because they must lost millions of pounds in car park revenue each year. They probably don’t see that Northumberland authorities see the value of people and businesses and tourists and attractions over and above the value of parking on a measly strip of gravel on the outskirts of the town centre that puts people off visiting.

Anyway, that’s my soap box for the day today. Northumberland parking authorities – well done, fabulous scheme, and a dream for visitors to feel welcomed into the place.

We had a little wander around Alnwick, had some dinner, got some bits and pieces, and then had the most amazing ice cream I’ve had for I don’t know how long. It was from Carlo’s in Alnwick (can’t remember the name of the street offhand) and the array of flavours was wonderful. The ice cream itself was delicious. None of that airy fatty stuff that calls itself ice cream, but proper full on flavoursome creamy gorgeousness in a cone. We’ll be going back there for sure! I also met the most beautiful little girl in the world as we walked along the pavement. She must have only been about 2 or 3, and she was walking with a group of her family members. She held my eye as we walked towards each other and as she got close, she gave me the biggest smile I’ve ever seen from a child. Such a spontaneous show of friendship and connection is rare, and it made my heart flip over when I was on the receiving end of it. I said to her Dad that she was adorable and that her smile had made my day. It really did, too!

After that we came back to the site and had “a bit of a rest”. What that means is that we all basically conked out for an hour’s snooze while the wind was blowing a hoolie around the vans. I did corned beef cottage pie for tea (pro tip: ignore any temperature settings on the caravan oven, turn it up as full as it will go and pray that the cheese on top will actually go brown instead of merely melt after an hour in there).

And then my FAVOURITE time today was a trip to Bamburgh beach as the sun was setting. I couldn’t wait to get my socks and shoes off and we headed off over the sand to the water’s edge. I ploughed straight in and the sea was really REALLY cold. Surprising really, given that, even on a hot day like today, the sea is only warmed from that tropical paradise to the north called Norway and the Arctic Circle and remains at a temperature somewhere around freezing point. It was still fabulous to paddle in it though and I loved having my feet chilled in the water as I walked. The others didn’t want to get their feet wet, tsk, so I was the only one with sandy feet back in the car. Oops…!

We watched the sun go down over the clouds on the horizon and headed back to the campsite for bedtime brews and setting the beds up. Here’s some photos from today, and let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Love and light

Pamster x

Holiday – Day 1

Phew! Made it…. We’re on holiday at last. It has been a long two years since we were able to come away in our caravan, and I’ve been looking forward to today with a mixture of excitement and dread. Excitement because I am in my favourite place, Northumberland, but a bit of dread because a lot has changed since we were last away, and I am leaving behind not one but both children this time round. And when I say “children”, don’t go reporting me to Social Services…. they are 28 and 22 respectively! Nevertheless it is a bit strange with neither of them here for the first time ever.

Today then has mostly been about travelling. Mostly on major roads like the M62 and M1, but also on the quieter A1 and the very quiet back roads on between the main road and the campsite. The further we travelled from home, the calmer I felt, and the bigger the skies got, the better I began to feel.

It was a joy to see sheep in the fields, and bales of hay that the farmers had baled and left for collection, and to see the various rivers and streams disappear under us when the road took us over them. We saw the Angel of the North from the main road, which always brings me a pang of happiness, and when we turned off the A1 to go towards our little campsite, I really got a pang of excitement and deep joy.

One of my favourite things about travelling in the British countryside is watching how the fields change colour depending on what the farmer is using them for. I love the way the different shades of yellow of the hay bales show up against the green trees that line the fields, and the way that both the yellows and the greens contrast with the different layers of blue and white skies. It’s always one of my summer aims to take the ultimate photograph that shows these colours off properly, which as ever, I usually fall short of capturing.

Tomorrow’s plan is to…. erm…. let the day unfold? We haven’t got any plans at all for these 10 days, and we are just going to see what happens when we get up in the morning. I have a couple of ideas of things I’d like to do, such as walk part of the Pilgrim’s Way onto the island of Lindisfarne and to visit Melrose Abbey if we can, but nothing is definite and we’re just going to take things as they come.

For now though, it is a clear sky and the air is quite chilly so it’s time to snuggle down in my sleeping bag and to wish you all a goodnight.

Grace and peace,

Pam x

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