Sunny Scotland

Newcastle and beyond

Late May Bank Holiday weekend

So, we're heading to beautiful Scotland again and trying vaguely to recreate our New Zealand trip with its gorgeous scenery, dominated by forests, lakes and mountains, relaxation, walking and wildlife-watching. 

After packing the car and filling it with petrol, we left home at 10:30 on Saturday morning and joined the Great British public in their traditional Bank Holiday pursuit of sitting in traffic jams. Along with the extra traffic, there were some further delays due to roadworks, so we took rather longer than expected to reach Newcastle. Even the usual oasis of calm that is Wetherby services was no fun - inhabited as it was by scores of hen and stag-party goers, and some rather persistent mobile phone company reps. We opted for lunch from the West Cornwall Pasty company, eaten in the car, and then drove on, stopping briefly for a photo-op in Dave's family's former home in Swalwell.

A welcome from the Angel

That small diversion meant we missed the worst of the Gateshead roadworks and we dropped off our gear at the Airport Premier Inn before driving to my brother and sister-in-law, John and Lois's. After a quick catch-up, admiring their new kitchen and having a drink out in the garden (and handing over a few souvenirs from our Kiwi adventure as well as my nephew Rory's belated birthday presents) we opted to head out for tea. We went to the Twin Farms, and luckily were early enough to be able to eat at a table which had been reserved, but not until after 7pm - Bank Holiday weekend! Its a lovely walk there and back, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting, me with John and Lois, and Dave with Rory who was in full-on composer mode.
We went back to the Premier Inn for a bath and to sleep, though Dave was woken by the early morning plane departures. We McBreakfasted and arrived back at John and Lois's at around 9am. The lack of an iron in our hotel room had partly informed my clothing choice for the day, along with John's suggestion that a visit to the coast would be likely. Rory wanted us to go to Blyth to experience his favourite ice-cream vendors, and there were a couple of fun-sounding music-related events at Newbiggin-by-the-sea and nearby village pubs which might make a good day of things. We headed first to the northernmost of these, Newbiggin, and had a bracing walk along the beach in the typical Northumberland bank holiday weather!

Flo and Bob, the Newbiggin-by-the-sea statues. Oh, and Dave.

Not very promising for a Bank Holiday village fayre is it?

Lovely mural in Newbiggin-by-the-sea

We stopped for a coffee, while Dave and Rory explored the rock pools and Rory videoed himself for one of his YouTube videos. 

Newbiggin coffee shop

We then headed for the village fayre with its dodgy stalls, seaside-style throw-a-thing, win-a-thing games (much to Rory's anti-Minion disgust), and (what we'd gone for) the Eukele band performance. We listened for a while, aloof and unimpressed naturally (although I must confess that I danced when they did Delilah), and then drove south to Blyth.

Eukele Band

Win a minion anyone?

We'd been before, a few years earlier, and recognised the building, but it had been done up considerably inside, so we had lunch in Coastline, the fish and chip cafe, followed by various of the delightful selection of ice-creams, including Ferrero Rocher, Blue vanilla, Tutti Frutti and honeycomb. 

Yummy ice-cream

Blyth beach huts

Despite another walk along the beach outside the restaurant, we were too early for the live music afternoon, so went back to the house (it not being especially warm and thereby not encouraging lingering).

After a quick vote, we change plans and headed for a walk round the Havana woodland area with lakes and woods and some wildlife. There some lovely wild flowers which didn't mind being regularly over-flown by the Newcastle airplanes, but not many birds.

We drove back and sat around snoozing and chatting while Dave 'helped' Rory work on his song by sharing some of his favourite YouTube videos and sounds. His creativity and endeavour are so impressive, and he's able to compose amazing melodies and create all sorts of styles of music; it must be wonderful to be so talented. 


Agreeing that we'd all had too much lunch for a big tea, we had a lovely buffet-style salad supper before watching the new Top Gear, an old Death in Paradise and then saying goodnight.

On Monday morning, we decided we'd start for Scotland at about 10, but then overslept slightly (less plane noise), and didn't get to John's until nine. We joined them for breakfast and enjoyed their reaction to a couple of Heck and Scaramanga Six videos. We chatted a bit about John's forthcoming 50th birthday party plans, and then got on the road. The traffic was much better, and we made really good time, reaching the border in low cloud, drizzle and barely double figure temperatures at  about 11:15. 

As we headed towards Edinburgh and the Forth road bridge, it warmed up and the sun appeared, shining nicely on the new bridge being built alongside the existing one. Not sure how long until its finished, but it looks fabulous.

You may notice, not a single keyring was purchased during the making of this blog post. Shocking.

Practicing his moody teenager gaze, ready for rock stardom