Wet Weather Walk

Yesterday we took Tim for a walk at Gibside, a National Trust estate once owned by the Bowes-Lyon family.

Their money was made on coal, mined from the surrounding landscape. The long flat stretch from the chapel to where the road curves round in front of the house and the dip down the hillside is where the racehorses were exercised.

The weather was dismal but meant we had the place to ourselves. Away in the distance we saw the clutch of pre-school children doggedly scrambling after their leader through the sudden downpour which didn't seem to dampen their spirits at all.

The low cloud base meant that the column of Liberty can barely be seen at the far end of the long drive, but perhaps if you click on the pic, you'll spot it on the larger version!

A trip out

#ICancelledMyTripToLondon

I may just re-charge my ipad and spend the rest of the day reading this thread on Twitter. What a hoot! Best thing in a long while.

In spite of today being Saturday we took a trip out to Wallington, a National Trust place not far away. It's a while since we've been there, and both self and DH had to think really hard to remember the way to get there! It's somewhere we've been hundreds of times and of course once we remembered that it is off the A68 we wondered how we could have forgotten. I guess this is one of the signs of how much information we are obliged to cram into our minds these days. Perhaps my shelves are getting full and need weeding!
Wallington

There is a whole new layout for the car park which seems to have increased at least threefold in our absence. There is also a 6-mile cycle track which we blithely assumed accommodated dog walkers as well (luckily we were correct!) and so we walked for a good hour or so through fields and woods and met only one other dog walking couple - and they were 200 yards ahead of us where the tracks converged. After doing that we didnt need to follow the crowds into the courtyard or the shop or the house; nor the walled garden either. We'll save those things for a weekday when it will be less crowded. But it was nice to go back.

As a rule I'm not overkeen on sharing bridlepaths and footpaths with cyclists as so often they are used by hulking men who hurtle by without warning and expect me and my on-lead dog to get out of their way. The family groups and the "gentle" riders I have no issues with; it is the lycra clad, crash helmeted 15 stoners who ride at 30-40 miles an hour without use of bell or voice as warning. Do they not realise that the noise they create is behind them? If they do not alert us that they are going to overtake, we do not know that they are behind us.

Glorious autumn

I love autumn. I think I love it more than summer because it's cooler and the flies have gone, the leaves are starting to turn glorious colours and a walk is so pleasant. If I think of the summer I remember batting flies away and sweating when I walked Tim - even if I went at a snail's pace.

A couple of days ago we went to walk at Allen Banks so early we were nearly the first ones there. Near Ridley Hall and Bardon Mill, its a National Trust property with glorious wooded banks following the River Allen, a tributary of the South Tyne. We scrambled up the hill away from the river, because most people amble along beside the water towards Plankey Mill and the old bridge that got washed away in last winter's floods. It is beautiful, but we have a more peaceful walk if we meet fewer dogs, so we opt for the high road.

 The video clip is of me  playing with Tim, and if you think I'm very delicate with my throwing of a stick for him, it is because the banks suddenly drop off like a cliff and I didn't want him suddenly disappearing over the edge! We plan to return in a week or so when the leaves have more colour and I finally have a fully charged up camera. DH chides me for not charging it, and I insist I have been; but the last few times I've taken the wretched thing out, it has calmly informed me its battery is low and then it refuses to work. when we got home we found the instruction book and discovered I hadn't been doing it with the right bits of wire and plugs. Duh!  How complicated life is these days!

Good News

This morning I received news that another story - Reluctance - has been accepted by MuseItUp Publishing. The setting for this one is 1803, if my memory serves correctly (I'm not good at remembering figures. Words, yes, but numbers just go into limbo and disappear) and I took a local setting I know fairly well - Gibside Hall, now a National Trust property, and imagined my characters into it. Great fun. The story was fun to write, too, though my hero/ine both suffer till they get to the last page. In true romance style, there's a happy ending.

After a run of rejections from UK agents (well, OK, two; all very nice and polite, wishing me well elsewhere but unfortunately my story is just not for them), this is such good news. I wonder if I dare look for a third piece of good news this week?

The pic is my other half looking out over the battlements of Stirling Castle. The hills behind him are where the Highland Line begins.

Acorn Banks

Wonderful day out yesterday. Headed out to Gretna on the west coast, visited the Outlet Centre (I stocked up on nothing more exciting than M&S knickers and socks!) then south down the M6 to Penrith. Acorn Banks at Temple Sowerby was our destination and it did not disappoint.

We had brilliant weather all the way and I realised all over again why I love autumn. The clarity, and colours, the crispness.

Acorn Banks is famous for its herb garden which is certainly one of, if not the best, herb garden in the country. Names of herbs I read about in historical novels are growing there in profusion. Mandrake, hemlock, a section marked Women's Herbs...

The house is not open, but I'm sure the National Trust magazine will not mind if I quote a snippet from their Autumn 09 pages: Acorn Bank in Cumbria, a fine old red sandstone manor with "glorious views, acres of wild daffodils in the spring, ancient oakwoods, orchards and a watermill. But the old house was nearly impossible to live in. The heating came from an oil-fired boiler much the same size as the one that drove the Queen Elizabeth liner. When this monster was cracked up, the great house smelt like a garage and half of Cumbria was covered in oily particles. When the price of oil rocketed in the 1970s, it became so expensive to heat that we lived in one room to keep warm." John Vidal writes of forty years ago and the NT, who work towards clean and renewable energy in all their properties, have plans afoot to change all that.

The watermill, a half a mile from the house through the aforementioned oakwoods with acorns crunching underfoot, is now restored, and will produce hydroelectricity as well as grinding corn. I have in mind Future visits, particularly in the spring to catch all those daffodils. Today we saw a couple of red squirrels darting about doing acrobatics through the tree tops, and discovered that there are holiday apartments to let. More pics will follow in the next few days.