Hang on to your hats..........2

Monday - right oft we jolly well go .....Wallington house and gardens a NT property were first on our list basically because I was assured that the ladies there would sort out a glitch with our NT membership that so far endless phonecalls and letters had failed to do. Sorted within 7 minutes ...VERY impressed indeed!

Wallington is quite an austere property from the front but that is just a facade for the beautiful interior, walls of china and pictures and the NT collection of dolls houses...so beautiful ...there's just something about a dolls house isn't there? I still have mine and all the furniture and all the little covers and curtains my mother painstakingly made. The rooms were just beautiful and we spent an age taking it all in. Then it was out into the bright sunshine (BRIGHT SUNSHINE note!) The signs took us through the grounds and across the main road to the pool and tucked away was a beautiful walled garden, conservatory and owl house. I understand from Withy that the garden was severely damaged when the pool overflowed but someone has certainly worked hard because there was no evidence of any mishap.

It was well after 7pm when we dragged ourselves away and headed back for the A1, however forever the intrepid explorers, we headed straight out to the coastal route and found Ashington, Woodhorn and Amble. Pit heads, open cast mining, aluminium smelters and the longest lines of terraced houses I have ever seen. We were told later that this was where the Charlton brothers were brought up. In a chip shop in Amble I read a storyboard about the Northumbrian fishermen's traditional boat the 'coble' - it was fascinating. We sat on the harbour wall and ate fish and chips with some new found friends - about 30 black headed sea gulls. By the time we had finished the shepherd had got one to take chips from his fingers much to the amusement of some local lads. (couldn't understand a word they said )....smiling and nodding inanely we left them with the sea gulls. The sun (yes THE SUN at 9pm ish) was turning everything rosy and as we admired a great patchwork of allotments the men leaning on their forks acknowledged us . Their faces etched with the lines of sheer grit, determination and hard work were softened in the pink light and a faint blue plume of cigarette smoke hung above them.

Tuesday dawned sunny (AGAIN) and we decided to stay relatively local in the Alnwick gardens...We thought 'yeah right - gardens - couple of hours perhaps then the castle?' WRONG .we were there all day! These are the spectacular 21st Century gardens, the brainchild of the Duchess of Northumberland, designed by Jaques and Peter Wirtz, Belgian garden designers of some standing. OK, I know that eyebrows have been raised at the overall cost, and if I lived in the area I might just raise one myself, but we were there as visitors and enjoyed and appreciated every minute of it. The laws of physics and chemistry came alive in the Serpentine garden of water sculptures .....kids get wet, very wet, then the water feature that takes centre stage changes its programmes with fountains suddenly appearing where there were none and ....adults get wet.....very wet!

The massive formation of hornbeams over giant frames provided shadey rooms from the midday sun and my son suddenly took an interest in photography. Most photos from here on are his! (spit!) A fleet of little John Deere tractors are there for the children to play on and ...get this...you can sit on the grass, walk on it, do a couple of handstands ...whatever. We queued for a tour of the closed poison garden - fascinating folk lore mixed with fact...I was transfixed - but then he always said there was a touch of the witch about me - something to do with being able to smell snow......and a slug invasion - but we wont go into that!

we found the tree house - not that you could actually miss it being one of the largest such constructions in the world, built from Canadian cedar ...take a bow Pondside! There are rope bridges connecting the various levels and I am not good with moving, unstable structures. Just about to take a deep breath and launch myself forward a class 1 brat of a child started shaking and bouncing the whole thing right behind me. I turned and froze him with one of my best 'death looks' much to the amusement of my family on the other side waiting for me .....I expect the brat is still there rooted to the spot ...it was after all one of my best!

Hang on to your hats..........

Just planning a holiday in this household is similar to organising a military operation so we don't actually do it more than once a year. By Friday night I was teetering on the edge of committing murder, it was tipping it down with rain and I was definitely talking through gritted teeth because my jaw was aching. In the end I gave up and went to bed figuring out that what wasn't done simply wasn't going to get done and basically I didn't actually care....

Saturday we had agreed that we would be up and out, on the road and heading North by 7.30am and we were! Wonders will never cease!

Our first ever sights of Northumberland as we left Carlisle and headed East along the A69 were of rolling moorland, woodland and Hadrian's Wall. Flocks of Swaledale sheep nestled beneath the stone as no doubt they had always done for centuries. We skimmed by place names of Once Brewed and Half Whistle and down towards Newcastle where we skirted the city, collected the A1 and we were off North again on the last leg of our journey.

We found Spitalford, easily recognisable from the photographs I had seen. It is simply beautiful. For the whole time we were there I never tired of either gazing out through the bedroom windows at the fields of corn turning slowly gold under the summer sun or just wandering around in the lovely garden looking at the cottage and the terracotta pantiled roof. This is where i undoubtedly shoot myself in the foot because if you look in the visitors book in the cottage EVERYONE says they are coming back, if you lot get in on the act as well......get the drift? Anyway it is lovely and the interpretation and restoration of it has been so tastefully done with such loving care and attention to detail.

We had to go out just to be able to come 'home' and our first foray was towards Seahouses on a Saturday afternoon, to gather provisions and explore. As soon as cupboards filled we were off again on foot to 'The most beautiful beach in the world' ...she is not kidding! It was dusk as we wandered back around leafy lanes, honeysuckle perfume heavy in the air. A deer heard us talking and bolted across the field in front of us ..I thought I was seeing things. Then as Gary wandered across an old stone bridge he looked down into the undergrowth and long fringed doe eyes stared back at him ...he motioned to us to join him ...too late. We just saw the movement as she disappeared.

And so to bed.........hells teeth ...it's got by far the biggest bed I have EVER slept in and you dont just go to sleep because it doesn't actually get dark... just an amazing iridescent green, and it is silent, not just basic quiet...oh no.. totally and absolutely silent! By 4.30am a thrush decides enough is enough and shatters the silence into a million shards, the sun comes up and glitters on the sea across the gently waving cornfields and another day is born in Spitalford...

By 6am I was barefoot in the garden, a heavenly thick plush lawn...eat your heart out Mr Axminster, never in a million years could you replicate that! I found the pigs snoring away in their little shelter, then took him upstairs a cuppa and remarked at the similarity. A car scratched onto the gravel by the gate, a 'coooeeee' and a vision breezed in, all long hair and lip gloss and I'm thinking 'does your mother know you're out at this hour?' There's me with jaw hitting the floor, uncombed hair and old ....VERY old, kaftan thingy worn especially for wandering around gardens in the early morning.

When Purple people meet there is this instant chattering without pausing for breath coz there's no need to bother with formalities because we all 'know' each other, about families, warts and all and so it was that the shepherd remarked later ...'sounded more like a chicken run at feed time down there...all that squawking, yakking and giggling......'

Sunday is always a walking day after so much travelling the day before. We set out across Embleton Bay negotiated the burn with much hilarity as mother couldn't quite jump the dratted thing and got a wet foot, past the fisherman's sea houses at Low Newton and across the nature reserve to High Newton. The panoramic views were magnificent but for me it was the huge sky above me ...I felt like a newly released battery hen with its head on one side looking up and thinking ...'crikey what IS all that space?' We marvelled at old stone buildings, walls, butterflies, orchids, a little tin Church, more fishermen's cottages and suddenly it rained. As we made our way across the edge of a golf course the sky opened and we were soaked to the skin!

After hot showers the shepherd tentatively mentioned food ...or rather the requirement for. His idea being to venture down to a local hostelry .......'Noooooooooooooo I want to play in this delightful kitchen.......' his turn to be gobsmacked, what would normally happen at such a suggestion would be a gust of wind as I hurtle to the car before he changes his mind. I would be in there and seat belt buckled before he could utter another word....you can tell we dont get out much........

Tuesday........

I know ...twice in two days, I shall need to go and have a lie down!

I've said it before and no doubt will say it again ...these grandchildren are lovely little folk but the bugs they bring with them are virulent little devils. After copping 8 colds from darling little T over the winter he is now wanting to share his tummy bugs......arrgghhhhhhhhhh! Meanwhile the culprit has left the scene and is well basted in sunscreen and up to his knees in sand on a Spanish beach and does he care? ...does he hell! I remember bemoaning this to a friend ...he shared my thoughts ...'We had always been so fit until the grandchildren csme along ...we really thought we were dying!' So I am 'off sick' and wandering around trying to catch up on mundane things, having a little sit down....a read here, a potter in the garden...A DIVE to the bathroom....another cup of weak tea.....and off we go again...

However it is beautiful in my garden at the moment...'garden' did I say that word? Dont be daft...this isn't a proper proper garden as wot I would wish for ...there are no defined areas, no veggies, haven't got a clue what half the plants are. Strange really that we live in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty' and yet the soil is basically toxic spoil. The miners had gardens, we've read about their allotments .....ah ha but they weren't down at this level, they were much higher in what is now woodland. The old maps that have the field names on show 'garden patches' high on the hillside with fields nearby labelled 'The sky high field' 'five day math' and the very mysterious 'slatterns graves'.

In my meanderings yesterday I took some pictures of the garden in the sun, and of course my 'garden ornaments '....while neighbour that hates chickens with a passion is at work, I let my little flock of Buff orpingtons across the track into the garden with me. They are so funny its as though they know they musn't linger on the track...I open their gate, they tear across and through the gate and they stay until tea time and then we do the process in reverse. The big boys play in the duck's water bath, then they all have a zzzzzzzzzz in the sun.

So its another day at home ...I did ask the parents of that germ infested heap of grandson....'How long exactly did T have this bug?' ...'Oh only about six days....' came the blithe reply as they waved goodbye on their way to Spain. ...Whaaaat! SIX days ...fanberludytastic... d'you know I'm sure I would get less germs snogging one of the sheep than a cuddle with T! Well I am on day six so I hope I will be back to work tomorrow....I'll just put another toilet roll or two in the fridge ...and see you in another four weeks...........

quick dust round needed....

From the dates it appears I haven't set foot in here for a month! A whole 4 weeks! I haven't however been sitting about contemplating my navel ....far from it in fact.

We have been out and about 'sprotting' around the locality looking for bits of useful history, taking pictures by the memory card load, walking ...usually in the rain ...why does it rain on a Wednesday when that is the night for designated 'walks on the wild side'?... and a street party ...yes another one!

It was a hot Saturday afternoon when with a friend we made our way over to the Kingdom of Trelystan for a wander round Mountainear's lovely garden and a peep into Trelytsan Church. What a 'peep' that turned out to be. What an amazing jewel that is, from the moment the gate on the roadside is opened to the track across the field to the centuries old Church surrounded by some of the oldest gravestones I have ever seen, my imagination ran riot. Where did the congregation come from? Why here? Why up on this hill in the middle of nowhere is there such a Church? As they key in the door turned and the door opened slowly I was craning my neck to see inside. It was dark, the windows are so small and quite high. The roof is almost folding in on itself, rods stretch from side to side whether to carry the heavy old lamps or to stop the roof moving in I'm not sure. The huge stone flags on the floor would have a long old story to tell. The single stained glass window with the most amazing shades of blue twinkled in the sunlight. No pale wishy washer colours for the Kingdom of Trelystan ...no fear ...more like 'lets sock it to 'em' vivid blues and scarlets, emeralds and gold.

There was a barrel organ with golden pipes near the altar, according to the written description it had a repertoire of 20 hymns. I wander what they are. The thought of fairground type music accompanying olde English/Welsh hymns started to make me chortle.

We stood quietly, reading avidly all the information we could gather.....behind us something rustled and moved...light footfalls like a child skipping...we turned ... stared at each other with eyes like saucers...not a word was spoken ....oh well...time to go.

Back out in the summer sun we read inscriptions on gravestones that were beautifully carved in weathered stone, a family of buzzards wheeled and mewed high above us in the clear blue sky and we wandered about those who had been here before us.....

Sunday................

A Sunday afternoon and I persuaded the shepherd to veer from his normal route to let me take some atmospheric pictures along a lonely valley. Once this valley was busy, a route for monks to the nearby Priory, more recently working men on bicycles going to the mines, now just sheep bleat and a silage harvester whined in the distance like an angry wasp. The smell of honeysuckle fell over us as a sweet veil. We stopped and started all up the road with me either climbing up gates or standing on the side of the truck to catch a view of the Devil's Chair from a different view point. Just below those jagged rocks there were once poor communities trying to hang on to the valley sides in tiny stone cottages built by hand with fields the size of a large lawn. They are all gone now and the cottages have all but returned to the earth ...ashes to ashes etc.

Wednesday................

Another wet Wednesday walk on the wild side found the intrepid band gazing into the depths of a long mining tunnel hidden by undergrowth. We searched for a cottage ...I saw it last year ...it has gone now. The rock faces towered above us as we stood quietly listening to a stone dropping two hundred feet down an open mine shaft. Two rows of barbed wire are the only hint of a hazard. A flock of coal black sheep jumbled around in the lime green bracken below us as we clambered down the rocks to the old farm at the bottom. They have gone now, the farmers, they wont be needing their boots again, they are there under the stairs waiting for warm feet that never come. Somebody has been in and rooted through the detritus left behind, looking for things to sell on no doubt. The roses still flower around the door and a pot of lilies stand on the step but the farmers have gone now and they wont be coming back.

Saturday dawned fine but rain was forecast ...there was much scurrying and to-ing and fro-ing along the track as dishes, trays and indgredients all swapped about. The sun held on and the rain never came and by 7pm one of our amazing street party gatherings was underway. There was a theme chosen this time for the first time ...The Wild West...very fitting. Now our street parties are becoming rather well known in the area and before we knew it there was a crowd of cowboy hats and boots that would have done credit to a scene from a John Wayne western. But the prize had to go to the clever couple who put a different interpretation on the basic cowboy and Indian theme. She was resplendent in a beautiful green and gold brocade sari number, with a golden shawl and a red caste spot straight from Mrs Kumar's family tree whilst her husband attired as Bob the Builder - hard hat and rigger boots, tool belt and claw hammer was the original cowboy builder. Did we laugh!

There were little dots running around in home made fringed tunics with feathers in headbands looking as though they had just come off the North American plain. The inevitable bonfire was lit as the dusk fell and the older children built little fires in brick hearths and toasted slices of bread. There were hilarious party games involving string and large bolts and tubes of cardboard. There were choruses of 'happy birthday' for the two birthday boys , a neighbour was 60 and my youngest was 17. As the crowds diminished the circle gravitated to the fire and the singing of good old fashioned country songs started...I could still hear them as I fell asleep on my pillow...apparently they were still going strong at 3am.....I wasn't!

For Sale or Not For Sale?

I get to somewhere mid March and I am so fed up with wind and rain, mud, mud and more mud that the 'For Sale' sign starts to be just a phone call away. For at least three months I do not see my home in daylight ...I wander about like a mole crossed with an olde English sheepdog peeping through my unkempt fringe wishing fervently for tarmac and sodium lights ...then all of a sudden...spring charges in with violets in the hedge rows, woodpeckers hammering like mad things and the cuckoo joining in the chorus.

The grass turns from a muddy mess to stuff lions could hide in within days. Suddenly the whole world is bright green and pulsating. The birds are deafening, a blackbird sings his heart out in the tree opposite the bedroom window and the pigeons coo themselves into a frenzy. Now I know why I am here on this windy hillside facing Wales .....because it is simply beautiful. We haven't had a meal indoors since last Friday. Bodran's clingy clangy wind chimes gently peal in the breeze sounding like the Angelus in a little Irish town.

I remember the first spring 11 years ago. Down the track a musical family would practice their instruments each evening sitting in the middle of the field. Well would you want five kids practising brass instruments in the house? No ...nor me! We always eat outside when we can and would sit listening transfixed to the music coming from the long grass. Couldn't see them ..only hear them. On band practice nights the same five children would walk up to the village hall, still practising as they walked. They never spoke...just played as they passed and we thought we were living in the faery lands of Mary Webb for sure.

The houses along the track host two rather large street parties during the year in June and November. On Saturday we had a 'bit of a do' to arrange the June event. Needless to say with a huge pot of communal curry, naan bread, home made pizza and a couple of school dinner sized puddings a party was born. The wine flowed, the sun dipped over Cader Idris, the guitar came out and ably led by the junior school teacher the singing started. 'The Fields of Athenry' turned into 'Wiv My Pit Boots On' and 'Babby's Yed' all mixed up with a couple of Abba favourites, The Seekers got a look in and a couple of hymns crept in as well. The youngest partygoer was our grandson of 13 months whilst the eldest was about 75. As the dusk fell all the children from the eight different families gravitated to a groundsheet under the holly tree and with two black labs as pillows they curled up like a large nest of puppies.

I sat talking to E who just marvelled at the scene in front of us ...how all the children had played together, how the little ones had been looked after by the big ones. How safe it all was, the families all intermingled yet all at ease. Even the pets were all there, dogs and cats lay under the collection of mismatched piebald chairs....just how it should be.

No I dont think I'll make that call for that 'For Sale' sign just yet ...well not until next March anyway....just remind me that I do get through it ...just like Christmas...yuk!

Mother Nature and a gooseberry bush

Remember at Sunday School or in the infants class when the topic turned to the Bible and God and you could nearly 'see' a big old man with a long white beard and a kindly rosy face like everybody's grandad. So...who was his wife? Mother Nature of course! I can 'see' her now ...a cross between Hannah Hauxwell and my mum. A force to be reckoned with indeed. Anyway during the last few weeks of lambing and weather and gardens and soggy lawns me and Her have had a few set to's ....they take me straight back to being 15 and not allowed to go to the dance when ALL my friends were...and my question is still the same now as then ...'WHY?'

We moved into this hovel on the hillside in April 1997 and the following spring I bought some lovely plants from a plant sale at Bridgnorth market. Forsythia ..it flowers, Mock Orange...it flowers and smells, Golden Buddleia...it flowers, proper geraniums...they flower and have spread and a camellia...nothing! Nice leaves... shame about the flowers. It has even been mentioned with posterity in a local version of gardener's questiontime...too dry, wrong soil, wrong position...sod it! I left it there on the corner of the flower border and swore at it profusely over the years...threatened it with the bonfire, watered it with the hosepipe with great force ...all to no avail.

For a similar amount of years I have also been fighting with a gooseberry bush that insisits it WILL grow near the front door in a crack in the front path. I have cut it down, weedkillered it, creosoted the stump, boiling water the lot! One poor drunken friend fell in it one hot August night as she left...could never work out why she was covered in long scratch marks the next day.

Last year in a particularly fed up moment I uttered those fateful words ....'OK, OK you can stay....I'm fed up with trying to eradicate you'...BUT Mother Nature can we have a bit of co-operation here? If I let that swine of a thorny bush stay right by the front door, in everybody's way could you at least do something about old misery down there and let's have a few flowers?

They exist not three feet apart ....Gooseberry bush larger than ever, loads of flowers this year, bumper crop expected ...dozens of legs WILL be scratched. People will wonder why this batty woman has a gooseberry bush by the front door...'what a stupid place to have a gooseberry bush!'. I've heard 'em say it!

Camellia however ...wait for it.....covered in dark red flowers...for the first time in 11 years! Good old Mother Nature...awkward old cuss!

The end is nigh!

Only three mothers left to produce and by the looks of them they aren't in any particular hurry..August will do. So tomorrow it's back to the paying job...proper clothes and shoes with heels. That fortnight went past with the speed of light...well for most of it on four hours sleep a night ...perhaps that's why it went fast.

I saw the saddest sight last night as we fed the sheep. The ewes with the lambs that I have been topping up with bottles had decided they didn't like their little field and had wormed their way through the fence into the big field. They all raced back to be fed of course ...when they had finished they gathered up their offspring and left following the sheep track back up to the big field. They never called for Big Bob, Nelly Knock Knees or Little Wilbur. They never even looked back. We watched as the three little lost souls looked at each other a bit bewildered , they had always had a mother here before to run to ..but now nothing. They made their way into the little shelter under the wall for the night ...first time alone.

I woke up in the night hoping the fox hadn't called on her way home from the valley.

At 5:30am I held my breath as we approached the field ..out of the little shelter came three hungry little souls..looks like this is their 'lot' now.....fed and happy together they were back in their shelter before you could recite 'baa baa black sheep' ...I know ...its survival of the fittest and all that...but their little faces last night when they realised their miserable mothers had just gone. Sheep ...who'd have 'em?

Finally, for I may be gone a little while, some pictures from our day out with purple people last week......

Yes the flowers are real and the sky was that blue and the happy gang on the bridge at Dingle Nursery.

l-r ..Woozle, ElizM, Mountainear, CCA and Bodran