This place feels like home...

like the song...get it?

The first week back at work always sucks doesn't it?
T'was quite an eventful holiday...

The day before we left for Seahouses, on the way home from watching my mother and sister perform in a show with their Bollywood group, smoke started pouring from the bonnet of my dad's car.  As neither myself or H drive, my mum's car holds 5 and 6 of us would be going on holiday, it looked like ol' pappy would be going on his Ducati (which, the last time we went on holiday, 3 years ago, packed in shortly before said holiday...spotting a trend yet?)  Lo, and indeed, behold, three days in, on the way to Alnwick, a warning light came on on his dashboard, he turned around and made it back to the house we were staying in, but the bike remained resolutley unridden for the rest of the week.

 

Less than an hour later, and just into Alnwick gardens, H's left knee and hand made very good friends with the gravel by the massive cascade fountain (I wanted to take a picture - of her hand and knee, not of the foutain, there's one of those just there ->;  but she wouldn't let me...it was pretty bad, all puss and goo and crap - well, not crap). Like the trooper she is though (this is the woman who walked from the pit lane at Donnington, all the way to the main stage at Download - despite fucking her ankle up...again - so i could see Tool), she was soon back on her feet and hobbling round the gardens (including the Mahoosive tree house above)

On Thursday, we took a somewhat scenic route to Heatherslaw in order to take the one and a half mile trip to Etal (essentially a street, with a castle at the end) and back, then on to Flodden Field.

Choo Choo!

The day, as you can see, had been fairly overcast, but by the time we had returned to Seahouses, the sun had come out, and it was decided that a second trip of the week to St. Aiden's beach was called for (happy now MOTHER? pedant....must be where I get it from.) Getting into the car that day, on a couple of occasions, I had felt a slight twinge in my leg, it soon wore off, and I put it down to cramp and thought nothing more of it. Foolish. When we got to the beach, I attempted to flick the ball, from a starting position behind me, over my head (something incidentally, that I've not been able to do since I was in my mid teens, and even then, only sporadically). And then I couldn't walk. The pain was such that, as when I had my tattoo, adrenaline was rushing to my head so quickly that I almost passed out. Like the wuss I clearly am. Luckily, despite initially thinking it was quite a severe injury, I was able to move fairly freely by Saturday, so you needn't worry.

An average photo of a wonderful view.

Despite all the trauma, this was far from a bad holiday, the first trip to the beach was much fun, as was the walk to Bamburgh via some rockpooling. Lindesfarne was as brilliant as ever, and occasional walks (when legs allowed) were rewarded with some lovely views. The running 'joke' that the bathroom (which sported a sign reading, shockingly, 'bathroom') was in fact a bedroom was still going by the end of the week, much to my suprise, as, well, it just wasn't funny after the first day, and even then funny's going a bit far...rambling... I had a pint of Auld Hemp ale -with me pa on his birthday - which tastes almost exactly how pot resin smells, the fish and chips were as good as they always are, as was the ice cream.  And the Kippers, sweet fishy baby jesus those Kippers!

The house, which backed onto the local Co-op, handy, but a pain in the arse at 7 o'clock every morning, was in equal measure ok and pretty shit.

We've already managed to book a holiday during May of next year, in 'Farne View', where we stayed three years ago, which was bloody marvelous. I can't flippin wait.