A Scottish sojourn and Cragside visited - at last.

Five beds in five nights is not very ecological, but as three were in youth hostels it was at least economical.                                                 

Looking out towards Helensborough. 

I revisited the Glasgow Youth Hostel so that I could spend time with family there, then hotfooted it to Stirling, where I succombed to the joys of Scottish cooking at the Brae Restaurant.  I do not think I have ever eaten before in a restaurant dubbed award winning but do not ask for coffee as it is seriously overpriced.  At the Stirling Hostel there were schoolchildren from the Czech Republic and Poland, which was intriguing and I would have said it was a lovely hostel, but when I tried to get my bag back having really enjoyed a long visit to Stirling Castle no one responded to my knocks or my phone calls or anything. And then the heavens opened too, so by the time I got the bag back I was well past my sell by date and needed a taxi on to my next destination - a lovely hotel for the night.   I had spent the day with a friend who I had meet on a Weardale Travel holiday and she was up in Stirling enjoying another such trip.  I could not manage the whole visit but the hotel enabled me to have dinner with her and breakfast even though she was on a coach trip with a whole bunch of other people.  So hotel and travel company very accomodating.  

Stirling Castle

It was raining so hard when I changed trains in Edinburgh that I almost fell out of the station and straight into the coffee shop oppositive, which just happened to be attached to the City Art Gallery.  Having enjoyed the free exhibition there, I almost headed off again, but the cheap train onwards was not for another hour, so even though I was shattered I headed across the park to the National Art Gallery.  Thank goodness I did.  One the atmosphere through the rain was very photogenic and two - the gallery has several of my favourite paintings in it - Glasgow Boys and Colourists.   And then it was back to Alnwick, my starting point for a trip to the Farne Islands, some time ago. 

Again I had intended to eat at the hostel to save money, but rather than just a cup of tea at Barters books in Alnwick the word Northumberland speciality grabbed me and I thoroughly enjoyed their version of rarebit.   But as a result I did not need breakfast as I headed out across country on a very scenic bus route to Cragside, the first house to have electricity installed in the UK.   I have seen this place on TV so often and everyone who has visited said it was wonderful and it is, especially in rhondodendron season, but it is problematic, the guy who owned it was an arms dealer,  and now even his plants would be controversial but it is a magnificent place.  I do not often get to visit stately homes and in a few days I managed a castle and one magnates home and several lovely meals out and two art galleries. Result.   And most importantly caught up with some lovely people - friends and family and cemented the joy I get from spending time up north. 

I booked only one room via Booking.com and all this was before I was locked into a battle with them about my missing holiday and the mental trauma of thinking I had, then hadn't, then had booked something with them.   The battle is ongoing.   I have somehow landed up with two accounts with them They have consistently failed to help me address this problem.  They keep asking hotels to refund me money because I missed my holiday, which I have never asked them to do and say it is nothing to do with them even though it is the platform I have a problem with. However, the fact that I have not been able to access my full hotmail  account for over a year has not helped. I have spent so many hours trying to resolve that one. I know I am not alone with such difficulties. 

Election called the night I was in Stirling hotel. 

Happy times and sad news.

Lovely weekend enjoying some sunshine, searching for the Northern lights and just going where the wind took us on a lovely romantic break in North Norfolk.  I tried crab for the first time in about 30 years, hidden behind cheese it was fine,  at midnight I almost fell in a bunker whilst out trying to find somewhere dark to look for the northern lights and prior to that we had watched a barrage of strobe effects that could have been the northern lights but were in fact the fun and games of the last hour or so of Eurovision.  What with that and a nice swim, great food, lovely hotel, and the discovery of a local animal rescue shelter we packed a lot into a short break.  

Shanties at the RNLI musuem

Sad news en route, about the death of the poet and campaigner Hubert Moore. Hubert wrote gentle, spare, humourous and incredibly perceptive poetry, often on the horrors of life e.g. on torture, through a unique lens reflecting on the differences within the parallel lives being lived on earth. A good, gentle soul, with a fierce anger about injustices.  

 And sad times for a young boy who was spotted inconsolate that his beloved THS had lost the women's FA cup today. Take that Joey Barton. Things have changed in the world of football.

Out at the count, not out for the count

The

BBC give us credit for reducing the Tory lead in the local elections, which cheered us up after not improving on our third places in most wards in Broxbourne.  The local election agent has lost tons of weight deliberately, not from the amount of work he has done to get the vote out which  has been tremendous, but after all that effort it was deflating not to have progressed further however four years on we are still in there, talking with the press, being referenced on TV and I think adding to the story of politics in Broxbourne and certainly making the Tories work harder.  

Receiving the results for the key ward.