Out of office on……

We're just back from a week long mini tour of the UK....last Saturday we headed south with Glenn dropping me off in Carlisle while he carried on to Manchester for his brother's stag do. I made my way to Hexham by train where I met mum who was 2 weeks into her 3 week tour of the UK taking in the Lake District, Bellingham, Keldhome and Selby. Hexham was a nice market village, and after having a walk around with Mum and Lass we headed back to Bellingham campsite and spent a nice night catching up over a bottle of wine 🙂 On Sunday we had a grey and cloudy walk along a section of the Pennine way and Hadrian's wall from Twice Brewed Inn to Caw Gap and back...although we took a different route from the map and ended up walking through a lot of marshland so could have done with our waterproofs! The rest of the day we chilled back at the campsite and had a walk into Bellingham town before having a deli tea back at the campervan. Glenn arrived up from Manchester about 8.30pm (after a 3.5hour hungover drive) so we just had a cuppa, catch up then bed...which for me and Glenn was Mum's little 2 manner tent. This was our first experience of camping and it went well apart from Glenn getting hayfever and sneezing constantly 🙁 While we were based in Bellingham we took a drive up to the east coast in the campervan and did a lovely 5 mile walk from the little town of Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle...it was a lovely sunny day and the views were great. That night we ate at the local Bellingham hotel/restaurant which was really nice with both Glenn and Mum sampling the local Wagyu burger (you might need to look that one up). The next day we headed south along with Mum to stay with Uncle Jasper and Aunty Fiona who live in a little village called Keldhome. We had a lovely relaxing couple of days sampling the delights of home cooking and brewing (bread, jam, pasta, beer, cider, plum gin, naan bread etc etc!!) and catching up. Glenn and I also took the opportunity to head into York for a day and have a wander round the shops and a pint on the canalside in the sun. On Friday Mum headed off to Selby for a country music festival and we headed to Chester via Harrogate and Elland where we popped in to see my uni friend Jane (who I haven't seen in ages!) and her baby daughter Scarlett. Bad planning on our behalf meant we were stuck in the 5pm traffic round the Manchester ring road so we didn't get to Chester until 7.30pm. After a quick chat and drink at Hoey's, Leah (Glenn's sister) and I were dropped off at the Friary Townhouse in Chester where we were spending the next two nights and where Polly's hen party was in full flow. After a meal and party games on the Friday night, Saturday involved riding Segways in Delamere forest which was great fun, followed by drinking games at the flat and then out round Chester for cocktail making and more drink and dancing. On Sunday morning the surviving hens (5 out of about 15 of us!) had breakfast in Carluccio's before getting a taxi back to Polly's. Just after lunch Glenn and I made the journey back up to Edinburgh, stopping off at a service station for a coffee and cake from Gregg's to keep us awake and getting back to the flat about 7pm. We had a really great week and feel we packed loads in which is nice. We've only been back a day but already Glenn and I have ordered a cooking book and beer making book as recommended by Fiona and Jasper so watch this space!! PS. I didn't have my camera out this trip so the photos are only those from Glenn's phone!