It's been awhile but I can still remember...

For my birthday Shelagh treated me to a surprise… and in November we got to discover that it was a pottery day at Aylesford Priory. First we learned how to get the air bubbles out of the clay and then to try and centre it on the wheel before you began to shape it. Hands slow.. wheel fast...

It gets very messy….

And requires a lot of concentration...

You get even more messy…

In the afternoon we rolled out more clay and built our own vases before decorating them with more clay...

I made the biggest one and Woody decorated his with fossils...

Some examples of our work...

Then we had to wait three weeks before it was fired and glazed.

Foggy waited by the mousie housie in case there were any developments….

In the meantime we met up with our friend Norman - at Hever Castle which is about midway between our home and his….

It was all decked out for Christmas but with an Alice in Wonderland theme

We took photos by the appropriate signs...

They had some nice old maps on display and East Farleigh features on all of them though the spellings vary somewhat. Looks like we need an old map for our house to keep up with the Boleyns!

This is the inner courtyard before you go inside the castle

And this is coming out the other side having been down the rabbit hole, seen lots of beautiful rooms, been up and down many staircases and through the room full of torture implements on the way out….

We enjoyed walking round the gardens which have been planted up with military precision for winter ably helped by RHS students. It got better as it got darker because the lights were stunning. We didn’t walk around the lake - bit muddy and needed to save something for another time!

Lights everywhere...

Some lights were static and others changed or moved. It was very well done.

There was also a special Christmas walk where you went down the rabbit hole and saw various scenes from Alice in Wonderland including the tea party, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the caterpillar complete with hookah and the Cheshire Cat.

It was a great day but loads more to see so we hope to go back.

This year Woody joined a Samba band in the village and has been samba-ing round the house ever since. On Saturday was his first gigs at two local Christmas fayres. I got to see him at Yalding where they had 3 sets.

He gets to wear a uniform and I got to wrap up - mulled wine helped keep me warm. £2.50 a go - bargain.

And then today we got to go back to Aylesford to collect the fired pottery. Here is Woody’s candlestick….

Shelagh’s vase...

And a selection of bowls

Hot soup anyone?

Plenty of crockery for a mad hatter’s tea party indeed :)

Hope everyone is well and keeps well for the Christmas season.

Much love

Woody & Bertie xxx

Up North where it's boring and slow...

… and it’s true because I read it in a book. Several books in fact as that is how all the Stanley Bagshaw books begin….

Not that we went to Huddersgate so we never saw any famous tramlines but we did get a train (actually 4) Up North.

Some people were queueing for their photograph to be taken at Platform 9 and ¾ we managed the amazing feat of catching a train off a platform that doesn’t actually exist...

Really on our way now we passed through York...

Tickets Please!

 We successfully got our way to Newcastle where we were collected by my aunt who drove us to her home in Hexham. New to us but she has now been there a while so a visit was long overdue. We arrived in the afternoon so fitted in a walk around the town to get our bearings.

Hexham is endowed with a multitude of Churches and at the bottom of this street is the Abbey.

To celebrate our arrival Sally had bought some sparkling mead! Lots of honey and maybe a taste of elderflower. Very yummy anyway and would recommend it. The mead I made was too sweet to drink too much of so remains in our cellar developing.

We went to Corbridge… well it was Coria back in the day. We visited an English Heritage site https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/corbridge-roman-town-hadrians-wall/

And saw the ruins of the old town and saw the evidence of how it had been a very successful place with good trade and supplying those who were manning the wall. It is good to know that not all Romans are equal as some of their building wasn’t quite right and they had to shoehorn the second grain store in as their first lot of measurements had been somewhat off. We amazingly arrived just a few minutes before a guided tour started so we joined our Remainer and Proud tour guide for an entertaining whirlwind history of the town.

Then it was into Corbridge proper - the modern town complete with walls and rooves.

We went to this bakery and bought some huge yummy looking florentines and some cakes for dessert.

We went to this Deli and had our lunch. I had a ploughman’s though sadly the pork pie was out so had smoked mackerel instead which was a very tasty alternative. Sally had a huge bowl of healthy soup and Woody had a locally sourced well presented tasty fry up.

We really struggled to enjoy it

The town square

The town pump thing is in memory of one of the Percies.. dukes (or earls?) of Northumberland.

We went on to Heavenfield….which is here…..

St Oswald had a vision before winning a battle here. There is a Church here with amazing views.

Lovely in the sun but chilly wind

The crag is the rock in the middle foreground.

Another day we we went to The Sill which is this place - https://www.thesill.org.uk

We saw some work Sally had done on an exhibition there and admired their green roof before heading up the hill to a nearby part of Hadrian’s wall.

Getting ones wellies and gaiters on ready for the mud!

The view from the carpark

We walked one way along the wall….

And saw this view…

And then the other way which was more uphill again following the line of the wall….

I see no sheeps...

Woody carried on to the trig pojnt being the highest part of the wall and took some extra photos. He is actually returning to join us in the one above - a small spot on top of the hill coming down by the wall. It shows how well he has recovered as pre op he couldn’t have managed this without significant chest pain and a lack of energy and he mostly ran down this slope to where we were waiting for him.

We had a special Christmas present where Sally took us on a surprise treat where we had dinner at a pub with this fellow...

I had a chicken and ham pie, Sally had confit of duck and Woody had slow cooked roast lamb -

 all of which was fabulous before going further into the depths of Kielder forest….

Where we saw this….

, 

the moon rise… this photo is on my phone through the view finder of the telescope

And all sorts of other sites at the observatory - lots of different kinds of galaxies and stars, shooting stars and the Milky Way amongst other things. Well worth the late night! And what was amazing was that the cloud had cleared perfectly for a great stargazing night and as we were leaving before the next group arrived it clouded over again.

It got down to about 2*c on the way home… and there was fog in places making a very atmospheric drive home

We spent one morning in Hexham Abbey where Sally was stewarding….

It is not strikingly impressive on the outside with its squat tower and quite often it can’t be seen as it doesn’t dominate the view getting lost in the surrounding town but once inside it is most impressive with a fantastic history - lots of rebuilds due to a variety of tourists who hadn’t found the architecture to their liking though they had been appreciative of the gold stored there.

The original crypt of the Abbey built by St Wilfrid had been found by accident as had been in the graveyard and somehow (ask Sally) a builder (?) had fallen through into it. It is now “back" inside the church due to more recent rebuilding bringing it back into the building  and you can go down and see where the relics would have been stored and the entrances of the monks and the public to the other side. At the end of the tunnel where Woody is standing and looking up is a stone that is carved that used to be found at Coria. Many stones from Coria and surrounding area have been re used throughout the Abbey including a Roman tombstone and lots of other carved stones.

 Lunch was at a greek restaurant where we got to enjoy great food. - maze dips and spanakopita and then souvlakis and a kebab with salad and chips which we all shared, and some sunshine...

We had a walk down by the river but didn’t manage to see any jumping salmon on the weir.

We will have no miracles here…. No walking on the water

The trees are much more autumnal here and will look stunning if the sun comes out!

We had some fabulous food including this salmon and prawn kedgeree cooked by Sally mmmm

Our last morning we had a walk around Hexham up a secret valley to a reservoir which is more about flood prevention than water supply so is more of a pond but has potential to be much deeper. It has been nicely done to be accessible for all.

We did a round walk heading back along the top of the hill with views of Hexham before being dropped off in Newcastle for the train home which was an easy and thankfully uneventful journey once on the first train.

Packed lunch! Washing down lovely chocolate brownie with a cuppa.

We are back to work as normal now but rested and having had a lovely break away. Next stop for Woody will be South Africa and then we both go to Wiltshire over Christmas.

Love to all W&B xxx