Berwick Upon Tweed

So after the excitement of Liverpool we were bound for Northumberland.  

Mark has been working near Berwick for a few months now but this is the first time that i have been able to take time off  work to stay with him. 

I was left to occupy myself during the day while he was at work, that's ok, i don't mind wondering around with my camera :-) 

The river Tweed, looking towards Berwick town, the clock tower is the Town Hall,

What strikes you when you first arrive are the 3 bridges across the river.

And you get a good view of all three together from the road towards Spittal.

In the foreground Berwick Bridge, or the Old Bridge as it is known as.  

It was built between 1611 and 1624 and is Grade I listed, traffic on this bridge is one way from the town.  

The middle one is the Royal Tweed Bridge a concrete construction which was built between 1925 and 1928 and is a traffic bridge.

The third bridge is the Royal Boarder Bridge, and is a Grade I listed railway viaduct, built between 1847 and 1850 and designed by Robert Stevenson (of The Stevenson's Rocket fame). 

 I must admit that i have a bit of a weakness for bridges, and never got tired of this view.  

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Berwick is home to the oldest known Barrack buildings.  I didn't visit the Barracks themselves but did spend many hours walking the Ramparts following the Lowery Trail, (which goes for miles).  Apparently LS Lowery spent quite a bit of time in Berwick and a lot of his paintings show scenes he sketched whilst visiting the area.

There is a lighthouse, a small one admittedly

Coming down from the ramparts there are several ways to access the estuary and the sea.

These lovely houses have a perfect spot

When i was walking into the town across the old bridge on the Monday i spotted something in the water.  Can you see that little black dot in the middle of the river?

I was so excited when i discovered that the black dot was a seal enjoying a bit of sun :-)

  

There must be a bit of a sandbank where he is.  I saw him again, in the same spot on Thursday.

I walked down to Spittal one day, just about a mile away, lovely quiet place.  Not a town as such, there are no shops except for a local general store.

But there is a rather lovely beach.

It was very windy the day i went, but in the summer i bet it's heaving, unlike now when there were only walkers like me or with their dogs enjoying the peace and quiet.

 

I fell in love with these houses on the front

How lovely it must be to wake up, open your bedroom curtains and see the sea every morning!

Local sea rescue

I took the river walk one day to get a better look at the Stevenson bridge

The 3 bridges from the other direction

I took a few photos in black & white, i think this one looks better in B&W

Berwick had a castle, you can just see the remains at the far end

I walked right round to that little cottage you can see in the distance to the right

It was a holiday let, so the notice in the window said.  Wonder how you would get yourself and your luggage to it? 

I retraced my steps, walked up through a little park, which was once a spot for local hangings and found myself at the top end of the town centre.

There is a caravan park here overlooking the sea and a small beach

Loved the view from high up

A lonely Sandpiper

Some people were enjoying exploring the rock pools

And who could blame them with such interesting things to find :-)

While walking down by the lighthouse one day i could here a lot of birds singing, then i noticed that someone had put up lots of bird boxes in the trees.

I noticed this little fella first, singing his little heart out he was

Another one keeping watch

Some activity at one of the bird boxes

I was glad to be able to get this photo

Some rather loud chirping got my attention and i looked up to see this little guy on some cable

Looks like he was wondering what i was doing 'down there', lol

Now, i'm no good with bird species, except for the obvious, so if anyone knows what these are i would very much like you to let me know in the comments.

I really enjoyed my week away, i managed to do loads of walking, something which i really enjoy but never seem to have the time to do very often, plus the walks i took were much more interesting than around housing estates!

Thank you for indulging me in posting my pictures, i realise that looking through other peoples holiday snaps is not something that a lot of people like to do, (although i will admit that i am from a strange breed that love to look at other peoples photos, lol)

Normal blog service will resume next week with some stitching and crochet updates :-)

-X-

The Fab 4 Liverpool weekend

We had a 2 part break, starting with the Easter weekend in Liverpool, I've wanted to do this for a while, and now I have! 

We hit some bad traffic on the way down so didn't arrive until just after lunch time, the traffic queuing for the City Centre car park was horrendous, at one point it seemed as if we would never get a parking space, but eventually we did although understandably we were both a bit frazzled by then.

We were stopping at the Hard Days Night hotel which was thankfully only a short walk from the Liverpool 1 parking, check-in wasn't until 2pm but we were able to drop our bags before then.

The Hard Days Night Hotel, in what was the financial district of the city.

Statues of the Beatles are all around, I think this one is Paul?

As you might guess from the name it's a Beatles themed hotel, we were in the Cynthia room.

The whole hotel is decorated with some fantastic Beatles photos.

We had tickets for the Beatles Story on the Albert Dock on the day we arrived so we headed straight over there.  It was a glorious day and the dock was crowded with people enjoying the weather.

Below:  How the Cavern Club used to look, so much smaller than you would have imagined.  They didn't serve alcohol, so people (and the bands) used to go and get a drink from the pub over the road.

I loved all the Lennon photos, (can you tell he's my favourite)

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The Wall of Fame is on Mathew Street.

Hundreds of bricks inscribed with the names of bands that have played at the original Cavern Club from 1957 to 1973.

Here's a bit of useless information, but you never know, it might come up in a quiz some time....Liverpool has had more No. 1 singles than any other city in Britain, 54 since 1952, wow! there must be something in the water there!

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Albert Dock

This was once a working dock of course, I think it's great that they have made it into something that people can come and enjoy, there are many shops and eateries as well as a couple of museums.  We visited the Maritime museum, well worth a visit with interesting stories, there is a section about the Lusitania and another about the Titanic, both of which we really enjoyed, although very sad.

There is a complete passenger list for the Titanic of all the classes and besides each name it says survived or died,  it's very emotional reading those names and very noticeable that in first class hardly any of the men survived at all, then there are the whole families that died, so so sad.

Albert Dock

Loved the mix of old and new and the interesting angles on the buildings

Seen from the dock

I think this skipper might have been taking a nap while waiting for customers :-)

This building is opposite the Albert Dock, it does a good impression of a ship, don't you think?

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The Three Graces...

The Liver Building, (left) the Cunard Building (middle) and the Port of Liverpool Building (right) at Pier Head.  

The clock faces on the Liver Building are 25 feet in diameter, bigger than those on Big Ben, who knew!

You can read more about the Liver Building and the other 2 buildings HERE, there are some very interesting stories about the Liver Birds.

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On the Friday night, (Good Friday) we had tickets for the Cavern Club to see a Who tribute band.

I was so excited to be going to the Cavern Club!!, although not the original one of course, (that's no longer there), but the atmosphere was fantastic all the same, we haven't been to see a live band in a while and I'd forgotten how good it is. 

I didn't take any photos in there, but take it from me the atmosphere is great!

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 Easter Saturday we had a booked a tour of John and Paul's childhood homes.

The National Trust own these two houses, you can't just turn up and go inside, bookings are via the National Trust and there are mini bus pick-ups at a couple of locations.  They run about 4 trips per day with a maximum of 15 people on each tour, which is just about the right size group.  We are National Trust members so we got a big discount on the ticket price.

Unfortunately photography is not allowed in either of the houses, but they are both decorated as they would have been when both John and Paul lived there, complete with yellow formica worktops in the kitchen (John's house) and candlewick bedspreads in both :-)

Mendips, the home of John Lennon's aunt and uncle with whom he lived from when he was 5.

When this house came up for sale Yoko Ono bought it and gave it to the National Trust with a stipulation that it was to be decorated in the style it would have been when he was growing up.  They were able to recreate the inside from photos and from accounts of the students that his aunt took in as lodgers.

The house sits on a now quite busy road, which wouldn't have been so busy in Johns youth.

Paul's house is not far away, but sits on a council estate.

No. 20 Forthlin Road.

Again they have recreated the inside as it would have looked when Paul was growing up.  The windows were what would have been in place at the time, they were acquired from a house opposite when the owners where changing their windows.  The off white paintwork is the right colour for the time as is the 'council red' 

I really didn't know what to expect from this tour but we agreed that it was way better than we thought it would be, you got a real feel for them growing up there and what an exciting time it must have been, and a sense of how ordinary they were.  Well worth the money if you are thinking of visiting.

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Weather wise, Saturday was a complete wash-out from around lunchtime onwards, we walked back towards Albert Dock after the tour as our Beatles Story ticket included entrance to another part on the Pier Head.

If you do  go to this part don't bother going to the little animated film they show, total waste of time with no significance.  But it did pass a bit of time as the weather was so bad. 

   

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I would have liked to had a ferry across the Mersey but there was no way I was venturing out on the water, the rain was lashing down by this time and it was hard to walk in the wind, such a contrast to the day before.

There was so much to see that we couldn't manage it all in the couple days we were there but it's only about a 2 hour drive so I would definitely love to go again.

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On Easter Sunday after a late breakfast we started out on our second journey.  Mark would be at work but I had a leisurely week planned.

I'll tell you all about that later in the week :-)

-X-

A Christmas finish and a stitchy start

I don't know what happened to March, I blinked and we are almost at the end, how did that happen.

It's been funny old month, i can't seem to get going with anything, and if i start anything i seem to create more mess than there was before.
We are going for a weekend break to Liverpool on Friday and then on Sunday we are continuing up to Berwick for the rest of the week and as typically happens in the week leading up to a holiday, i decide to add an epic cleaning list to an already filled week.  Why on earth i feel that i must have a deep clean of everything in sight is beyond me, but i do it to myself every time.

I need 3 weeks holiday, one week before, to prepare, one week away and a week to recover and get back to normal, lol.

I am looking forward to a week away though, and Liverpool in particular, i have lots of Beatles related things for us to do there :-)

Not a lot of crafting to show for this month, although I did stitch and finish this little Pineberry Lane Santa.  I've had it in my 'to do' pile for ages and when Christine put it up for the Needlecraft Haven monthly ornament it reminded me.  Although i didn't meet the NH stitching deadline, (i'm not good at stitching to a time limit), i have finished one of my intended charts.

(Apologies for the terrible photos, they were taken on my phone at night too, not a good combination)

  

I think he is a rather cute Santa.  I noticed that a lot of people chose to leave the year off this one, although i did consider it i stitched it as charted in the end.

The fabric i used had already been tea-dyed at sometime so i didn't bother ageing it anymore. 

Like many of you i probably spend far too much time looking at the work of other people and new things that i would like to do and not enough time getting on with it.  This year i have tried to put that right and have done more stitching in the last few months than i think i did for the whole of last year,

they might only be small finishes but i think I've got my act together enough to be trusted with a larger project now.

I stitched Molly, one of the Carriage House girls years ago, must be 4 at least, (i'm too lazy to look back and see!), but it was a while ago.

Yet more terrible grainy photos...sorry

I always intended to stitch the others but kept putting it off, until now.
This is Elizabeth after 18 days.

I like stitching blocks of colour, (must be the OCD gene in me), so i'm not fed up, although i will be giving her a holiday next week and taking something else away with me.

 I don't know how much i'll be on line next week, i shall probably only have internet access on my phone and will have to catch up on blogs and commenting when i get back.  Wishing you all a 'hoppy' Easter and I will catch up when i get back from my jollys and bore you all with (better) photos of my time away and hopefully some new stitching too :-)

-X-

Mother's day

Yesterday was Mother's Day here in the UK. 

I always thought that Mothering Sunday and Mother's day were one and the same, apparently not.

Mothering Sunday has it's roots in Christianity and was a celebration of the mother church, people returned to their so called mother church, the church in their area, for a service.

Years later it became a day when servants were given time off to visit families, children would pick wild flowers to give their mothers.

Mother's day as we celebrate it now began in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother.  

Later, Anna didn't like the commercialisation of Mother's Day
and particularly didn't like the use of printed greetings cards.

I wonder what she would think of all the shops filled with cards and Mother's Day related items if she could see them now!

Still, after saying all that, my girls, (and Oliver) did spoil me yesterday with their lovely gifts of flowers, pandora charm, chocolates, a cute little monkey and cup (from Oliver) and some hand made presents too.

I have to show you a closer photo of what my middle daughter Joanne made me, she did a great job.

A sweetie tree of my favourites :-)
I almost don't want to dismantle it!

A letter 'M' to add to my collection

Home made carrot cake, she knows how mum likes cake!

I hope you were equally spoilt if you celebrated other's Day yesterday.
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I'll be back very soon with some Christmas stitching and a new start.

-X-

White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits (and a March mantle)

Did you remember this morning?

There are variations on this superstition, saying it once, twice, or three times and even one that says it must be 'White Rabbit'...but you must also say 'Brown Rabbit' at night and walk downstairs backwards, (?)

Whatever you do, (or don't) say on the 1st of the month i hope March will be a lucky one for you.

And, if mine is as productive as February, I will indeed be a happy bunny :-)

I changed my mantle last night before i went to bed because i've got a lot on today.  I enjoyed looking around to see what i could use.

Easter is in March this year so there are lots of Easter decorations in the shops, but i didn't particularly want to be stuck with Easter for the next 3 weeks, (it will come soon enough), so a Spring theme seemed a better option.

I will probably change / add a couple of things for the Easter week when the time comes.
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As for stitching, i've stitched and made up the two little Spring freebies you can see on the mantle.

Tulips & Bunny

Free pattern from The Snowflower Diaries 

Which you can find here

My own choice of threads and fabric

A closer look

And below is:

Happy Spring

Free pattern from The Snowflower Diaries

Which you can find here

I stitched this with the recommended threads

 Just a simple hoop finish again, I wrapped some fabric around the hoop this time

I have to say that these two were an absolute pleasure to stitch.
Although not what i would usually choose to do, i did enjoy every stitch and working with the lovely bright colours.

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Did you notice my little friend?

I just couldn't resist her when I saw her, and I knew then that the theme for March just had to be bunnies :-)

Look at that sweet little knitted cardigan!

Mark of course, thinks i'm slightly mad,
(that's nothing new, I'm used to people thinking i'm strange ;-)
Luckily i can get away with adding my touches around the house, he just says 'very nice' and occasionally rolls his eyes :-)

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Millie is doing just fine, thank you all for you comments last time.

She is eating much better and had actually put on some weight when i took her back for her final check-up last Tuesday, which is great! 

Fingers crossed for healthy, happy cats, (and bank account!).

Until next time

-X-