To The Borders

On Thursday it was time for our visit to Anne and Malcolm. Anne's blog, 'Frayed At the Edge' is full of lovely things she has made as well as all sorts of other interesting bits and pieces. Anne invited us over when she read where we were having our holiday-reasonably close to where she lives. We arrived about 10.30 and, after the initial nerves at meeting, had a fun and packed day. Anne and Malcolm had worked out an itinerary that took us to many of the major attractions in the Borders, an area I did not know at all before. It was a lovely day.

This is the Trimontium.

Our first stop was to look at this view.

Smile please!A big and unidentified bird-probably a buzzard-I love seeing them whirling round on the wind. Look out tiny rodents.
This is the Leaderfoot viaduct-a fact I am afraid I did not remember but google helped me! It is a lovely colour don't you think? I am sure that was not the leading factor in its construction but still...
This place was a very posh seller of fancy woollen clothes and other country type items. Everything was very soft and finely made and way out of our price range! Lovely to look at and touch though. Actually Andy did buy a McCallum tie for a reasonable sum.

This is in the Baxters shop-I couldn't believe that you could get a whole chicken in a tin. I don't think you can now-this is a historical artefact!A dress made from Baxters soup labels. Perhaps I could make one from wine labels.
We had our lunch in a lovely wooden cabin near a mill. After a stroll down to the weir we were back on the road, off to visit Hawick. This is the Hawick webcam! This is from a textile museum being developed in the town's oldest building.
I love those boots and socks. There were even some woollen knickers with a big silk bow on the back. Not sure about those!

When we got back to the house I had a guided tour while Andy and Malcolm had some wine! I loved the house and all of Anne's quilts-she has made so many and they are great! They have travelled widely for Malcolm's job and their home is full of interesting things and stories to tell.

Then Anne took me to show me her studio. It is lovely-filled with fabric goodies and more of her beautiful work. And she doesn't just keep it all to her self-oh no-she has a group of like minded ladies round once a week to use the lovely space to knit, patch, felt and chat. What a great thing-I have to say I was just a little bit jealous! It really is a great space to work. It did inspire me to have a little go at tidying my back room(again!) where I keep all my materials. The trouble with dabbling in so many different arty activities is that it generates a lot of stuff. I have done it though and if I can just manage not to buy any more it should be fine!
When we had finished our studio tour Anne showered me with gifts! All hand made, all lovely, thanks again Anne! She also shared some choice pieces of fabric from her stash!

Aren't those wine glass coasters clever? No more wine rings!Pretty wrist warmers.

My very own mug bag for trips and courses!

Some of Anne's felty things!

The weather was really warm so we sat in the garden to eat the delicious dinner that our hosts had prepared. What a lovely day!
I will leave you with Anne, looking like a true blogger with her wireless laptop!

Thank you Anne and Malcolm for a lovely day which we both enjoyed. Hope we can entertain you too/two some day!

A Poisonous Garden

On Wednesday we met Andy's Mum, Jean, in Alnmouth-only an hour from Edinburgh! We had lunch there, then went down to Alnwick Castle Gardens. After a bit of faffing around with carparks-it was extremely busy and we had to find the overflow field-we found our way to the garden. As soon as we found it we then got a bit lost in the bamboo maze! It was beautifully cool in there. The gardens are the long term project of The Duchess of Northumberland (Here is a less than enthusiastic article about her and the way it has developed. Here is a more positive one!) and are great for a family day out. There were many families having picnics and kids using the various watery facilities-fountains that spurt unexpectedly and streams to paddle in. It was a boiling hot day, and so perfect for this kind of thing.

We had a wander around, enjoying the walled garden, rose garden and various covered walks. We then found ourselves at the ominous gates of the Poison Garden. We were told by the guide not to touch or even smell anything amongst the deadly plants to be found there. The garden is arranged with beds in the shape of tongues of flame and the guide created a suitably scary atmosphere with her gruesome tales of plant related deaths. The most scary plant was Oleander-even a scratch from the wood of this plant can kill, we were told-so if you have it in your garden be very careful! Here is quite a good article about it.This is a cannabis plant and one of the healthiest looking in the garden. A lot of the plants looked a bit unhealthy and undernourished which seemed appropriate somehow. I only noticed the sign when I looked at my photos though-KEEP OFF THE GRASS-ha ha!
This is the treehouse-a huge affair containing a cafe and restaurant.
And this wobbly bridge-one of two we crossed-every child that passed in the opposite direction shook the bridge! We had fun!

Later on, after Jean had gone home, we had our beach walk. The sun was beginning to set and this is the time the Oyster Catchers seem to like the best. They are cute and comical birds who do not eat oysters apparently!
Jackdaws on the phone wires.

I would love to live by a beach-bliss!

Off to see Puffins!

We took a boat to Inner Farne
on Tuesday, hoping to see Puffins and other sea birds. We saw loads-puffins, arctic terns, kittiwakes, gannets(the largest British seabird), shags, cormorants and also swallows-they were everywhere. The gannets diving were spectacular!

The photos reflect the distance and the extreme choppiness of the water! The video is there to show that choppiness! On my Mum's side of the family all her uncles were merchant sailors. I have not inherited the seagoing gene. Still, it was worth it to see all those birds and the grey seals we saw too. Below is the best photo I took of the puffins-I could see them better than the camera picked up though. When they are all floating on the sea they are called a 'raft of puffins'-how sweet! They have a funny little flight-their wings look too little for their bodies. They fly quite high over the water and are easy to spot due to their way of flying.

The seals seemed to be looking at us as much as we were looking at them! One even popped over to our island to watch as we waited for the boat to collect us.

I am afraid I still do not know the difference between a shag and a cormorant-one of them has bluey green plumage and one of them has a little tuft on its head-not sure which! I liked this photo of one of them walking along the cliff though.This is longstone lighthouse, made famous by Grace Darling, the brave woman who rescued shipwreck victims from the SS Forfarshire. She sadly died four years later from TB.
This is the ligthhouse on Inner Farne.

This is the tower house where five National Trust bird wardens live for nine months of the year. I can't decide if I would like that job or not.

This is the chapel on the island which has an interesting history.

On our drive home we saw the most beautiful rainbow. I have not seen such a clear one before where you could actually see the ends.
Then in the evening we were treated to this sunset!

Roman Northumberland

This is Lobster Pot Cottage where we stayed for the week. I am going to do my version of a slide show of some of the holiday photos this week-if you are old enough you will remember those-my dad used to do fancy ones with music! I took rather a lot of photos so although seventeen in one post may seem a lot-it's not! I am going to do a post each day to mirror the day of the holiday last week-it will help me to relive it a little while getting down to jobs such as sorting out the shed. These dogs belonged to our neighbours on the right and were very friendly. The little one on the left was the guard dog but he was a pushover really! Below are the lobster pots.
Monday was a day of visiting Roman Forts-the first was Chesters. This is the bath house-the little arches were possibly to put statues in. It was at the bottom of this site-near the river. This fort was built to defend a bridge-part of Hadrian's wall.Chesters has a great little museum with lots of stoneware and pottery. I would like to have a lintel like this. I wonder if this was in the bath house?

Our next fort was Housesteads-situated on Hadrian's wall-built to stop Pictish raiders from Scotland-started in AD122 (-that was the number of the bus we saw on the way to our third fort!)

This was my favourite fort because of the location and the chance to have a look at a Roman toilet-and to listen to lots of people telling their friends or children about Roman toilets, toilet customs and Roman plumbing. Most amusing!
Windswept! I was standing on top of the wall here and was slightly concerned about keeping my balance!
Looking up the hill towards the fort it is hard to tell which are sheep and which are people. If this photo chooses not to enlarge then it will be even harder!
Children enjoying the chance to climb on some ancient ruins.

Andy admiring the toilet. The two women on the right were having a conversation in which they wondered why the custom of communal toiletting had died out. I for one am glad it has though I have been in a toilet for two before-in some nightclub or other. That didn't catch on.Lots of people received this postcard from us as we thought it was funny!

The view was just stunning.

Finally, we visited Vindolanda-I think I am beginning to get Roman Fort hysteria here-or Andy is being funny. I am walking down a Roman road!

Maybe I was laughing at Andy's hat. Not sure!

Vindolanda is an amazing site-both for its size and for the amount of well preserved remains found. It is an ongoing excavation and we had the chance to see some archaeologists at work. Because of the building method of just pushing over what was left before, covering it with turf and starting over again, things have been preserved in anaerobic conditions-meaning that writing on thin wooden tablets has survived. This is a selection of highlights from the tablets. Click on the tablet for a translation. Number 12 is particularly interesting! It is a birthday invitation and is the earliest known example of writing in latin by a woman. These really bring the people alive in my imagination. Added to these there are loads of shoes, bronze artefacts that are still shiny and gold coloured, a glass painted with a gladiator scene and even a very strange wig.

Here are the archaeologists-it looks like quite hard dusty work but with such great rewards. We stood and stared at them for a while before going for a much needed cheese toasty in the Vindolanda cafe.

I have to mention the roads around this area too-they were great-some of the most exciting and satisfying roads I have ever driven on-straight but hilly with stunning views. I loved them!

Each day we had one or two beach walks-we were 2 minutes from it which was fantastic-I love beach walking, beach combing too-of which more later! This ball was most satisfiying to kick along the wet sand.
A lobster pot man!