The holiday has been flying by.
The first weekend, on Saturday 18th, CBC and I travelled to a rural part of Essex to take part in the memorial celebration of a friend's life. Last year, we had been invited to our friend Annie's for a memorial celebration of her mum, Inge. I'd offered to play my flute for it which Annie had jumped at and when her husband died in January, she immediately checked whether we would be available in July for a memorial celebration to play. We were really sad to say goodbye to him. I was very fond of him, he was a great man who had owned a model railway shop and made amazing railway structures as well as being an amazing DT teacher.
Naturally, I dressed accordingly, wearing my Cath Kidston train dress, which was much appreciated by lots of those who came along.
CBC and I set up a keyboard and microphone and speaker under the gazebo. Annie had suggested some songs that she would like played and in the end, CBC said I should sing some of them. I felt quite nervous about this as I am used to performing flute solos but I don't sing solos very often, especially, in the non-classical or musicals context. I ended up playing flute for La Vie en Rose and then singing Singbird by Fleetwood Mac, Dream a little dream and
The celebration in the garden was wonderful. I took myself off to one of the zones of the garden where there was a lovely sun lounger that Andy used to read in. Andy and I were always discussing books and would each lend each other ones, particularly with a train theme (or Gerald Durrell or Terry Pratchett). I also picked some lovely cherry plums from their tree.
We drove home late.
The next morning, after church, CBC and I drove to his sister's house to wish her a happy birthday. We stopped at Waitrose and bought her a birthday cake and Prosecco. We had cake in the garden and gave her presents and also to F, her youngest son, whose birthday was also coming up.
Ended up with a train-theme to the weekend as S, the oldest, has a train driving simulation game he wanted to show me as well as getting a football kicked at me in goal!
After this, we drove to Lewes in Sussex, as CBC had booked for us to watch a production of my favourite Jane Austen book, Northanger Abbey, by Moving Parts theatre co, at Lewes Castle.
We bought some fish and chips (chips in my case) and then watched the play in the grounds.
It was very entertaining and a very picturesque place to watch the play!
The next day, we drove to Hexham for a week.
The first night we arrived, we went for dinner at Hexham's new Thai restaurant! FINALLY, Hexham has a Thai restaurant. It has a lovely decor including an indoor tree and the food is delicious. It's not cheap but the food is wonderful. This Tamarind duck, which my MiL ordered, was superb!
The next day, CBC, his Mum and I travelled to Pooley Bridge near Ullswater in the Lake District to meet some French cousins. CBC's dad's Great Grandfather was French but CBC's Dad was not very sociable at meeting the French contingent of the family so the cousins have not met that often. We were meeting a cousin and her daughter who were on holiday there. We had a jolly time meeting and eating
went and went on a quick boat trip on the lake. We discovered that there are yet more family links with music as Marie's son is organist at the La Madaleine in Paris and is doing a recital at Notre Dame (yes, THE Notre Dame!) in September. The family all want to go and watch now!
Marie's daughter is a teacher too, but in international schools in very interesting locations- she's been in Khazakstan, Mongolia amongst other places! We got a little chance to chat together alone near the end and annoyingly discovered we were quite kindred spirits in many respects which would have been lovely to chat more!
The next day, I sent CBC off on a cycle by himself and I took myself off to swim at the Wentworth pool (Sadly, Haltwhistle outdoor pool was totally booked up!) as well as having a look round the shops. I didn't buy anything except one silk top in a charity shop.
I walked back up the hill to my MiL's house.
The next day, CBC and I planned a walk to Allendale. Wonderfully, there is a bus that goes from CBC's Mum's house to Allendale and Allenbanks and so we planned to do a small section of Isaac's Teatrail, which I'd really hoped to walk some of this Summer. The bus was a very scenic route with fabulous views of the moors. When we arrived in Allenbanks, we bought some sandwiches from the tearoom and then walked back towards Allendale. The walk ended in Allendale village, where I paid my respect to the Allendaleks outside the Museum of Classic Scifi and then met CBC's Mum, who had a podiatry appointment in Allendale (I'd planned this day cunningly!).
We went into the pub and had a cup of tea and a plate of chips
That evening, CBC's brother arrived in town for the weekend. We were happy to see him.
Our toad, Magical Misery Toad met HIS frog, Ricky!
Saturday morning, I started off the day with Watermelon with lime juice on it (very, very nice combination!)
We decided to do a walk from Corbridge after lunch at Hexham Abbey. J dropped us in Corbridge where we had cake and tea at Grant's bakery. WELL worth a visit if you go to Corbridge!
We walked along the river Tyne and then headed back via the scenic route towards Hexham, through Swallowship woods.
I was bemoaning the lack of fungi spotting when T spotted this one!
It was tempting to have a swim in this spot! If only it was a bit earlier and I had brought my swimming stuff!
We ended the walk with a trip to the Tap and Spile pub.
On Sunday morning, we had a slow, late start. I regretted not getting up in time to go and sing with J with the St Mary's choir in Witley.
In the afternoon, CBC, T and I went for a walk in Hexham along the Tyne which was very pleasant.
We went for dinner at the Thai restaurant as T is also fond of Thai!
I had a beef dish which is very unusual for me as I usually have Tofu green curry!
We went to watch the final concert of the Corbridge Music festival which was superb!
I saw a friend from my music camp who had come from Yorkshire for the festival.
After the concert, we went round to J's friend's house for a drink.
Back home, it was time to pack.
Alas, on the way home to Essex, our car packed in near Retford/Newark on the A1 and we had to call out the AA to rescue us! Alas, the car had an Oil problem that was going to prove incredibly expensive to fix and difficult. A repair worth more than the car!
We got home at after midnight.
The next day, CBC and I cycled on our bikes, since the car was kaputt, to go and look at new cars.
CBC decided he wanted to go electric. He'd said his next car would be electric but we weren't anticipating it being this soon! He decided,from looking, that he was most interested in a Renault EV but the local places didn't have quite the year or model he wanted.
I spent much of the rest of the day reading under the cherry tree. It was so hot!
On the Thursday, I can't quite remember what happened in the day apart from some packing and booking of train tickets to Norfolk. By weird fluke, buying on onward ticket to Sheringham proved cheaper (by more than half the cost!) than just buying a ticket to Norwich.
Later, we walked to the station and got a train to Southend, walked and changed trains to meet my Mum for diner at Akropolis, a Greek restaurant. We enjoyed our food but regretted ordering a Greek salad as all our meals came with salad!
We then headed to the Cliffs, Pavillion, to watch Cole Porter's High Society. A weird coincidence occurred. I'd been reading Island of the Mad by Laurie L King, a Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell novel and in it, they met Cole Porter!
The show is one I know very well as I was in a production of it. They did a fantastic job! Helen George (Call the Midwife) was really good as Tracy. The costumes were utterly dreamy and the set was beautiful!
My Mum bought me a 'You're sensational!" t-shirt to say thank you!
We all walked to the station and were beaten there by some of the cast! They move quickly.
Back home, after ANOTHER long walk, I did some packing for our next adventure to Norfolk.
The next morning, I walked my suitcase and holdall to the train station to catch trains and buses to Brentwood as my flute quartet had our recital
The practice and subsequent concert went really well and we had, what was one of their biggest lunchtime recital audiences of the year with around 70 people.
Our programme consisted of a variety of pieces with a sort of celestial theme!
About 14 of my own friends came to watch, including our lovely ex-Chair of the Governors from school, who has recently resigned (which I'm so sad about as he was one of my biggest supporters and a wonderful man!)
After this, CBC and I walked to the station and got the Liz line to Shenfield to get our connection to Norwich. We had an hour to kill before our train so CBC got some lunch in a restaurant near the station.
The journey to Norwich, via Colchester, Norwich and onto Sheringham was very pleasant. What a great train service!
CBC's sister and husband, plus Mum picked us up from Sheringham station and we went and did a big shop and drove to our home for the week, a cottage in Brinton, a tiny little village!
CBC and I were really happy to have a double bedroom as we thought we would be getting the single beds in the twin room, but CBC's Mum insisted we got the second-biggest room and she would have the single bed room!
We were happy but felt guilty about her sleeping on a smaller lower bed.
CBC and his mum made a salmon dinner for us and then it was off to bed!
The first two weeks flew by!
Ooh, here's something I bought in the charity shops and forgot about! Don't they go well together!
We hoped that our car issues would be sorted soon!
xx
