Week-ends away

I have just returned from Northumberland to a wet (for the first time in the best part of a month) Edinburgh. It is probably wet in Northumberland too by now. Since May (when our builders went away) we have been in Northumberland at lot at week-ends. This is not unusual - we just seemed to be there much less in the early part of this year. Our week-ends there have a familiar pattern - we leave here on Friday evening if we can; drive down the A1 (never failing to be stunned by the view down the coast to Lindisfarne and Bamburgh Castles from just north of Berwick); arrive, light the fire, eat chips and drink wine; take our small child to her riding lesson; go to the beach; read a lot of rubbish in the papers; occasionaly golf (badly); visit something; go back to the beach; read a lot of rubbish in more papers; come home usually on the other road, sometimes dropping in on family somewhere on the way. We often (although less lately) have friends to stay and enjoy showing them beaches and castles.

This week-end we have walked on the beach at Bamburgh. We went to Thropton Show. We walked today at Cheswick, where there were no signs of the many golf balls I accidentally fire over the dunes from nearby Goswick. The weather has had a tinge of autumn about it; the trees are turning and the hedgerows fantastic. The views south to Lindisfarne and beyond this morning were spectacular with the wind whipping the tops off the waves and the sky marbled (almost as beautifully as some of the marbled eggs in the Thropton industrial section). We are aware that living like this has a certain degree of unreality about it - it is almost like being on holiday every week-end or two. Except its not. It is a part of how we lead our life. It takes a bit of effort. We have proper homes in both places, both equally full of our stuff and each comfortable enough to be lived in properly. We are in Edinburgh most of the time, but do much of our living in Northumberland. I can't quite decide whether its the best of both worlds or a compromise. I'm not sure I have a compromising nature. Oh hell - confused again.

Garden Plenty

It has been a poor summer in our garden. It has been a bit neglected. We were stuck here in the earlier part of the year as we had work done on our house and since then have been making up for lost time away. The garden has had to do its own thing in a not very easy summer. It is a good spring and early summer garden, but usually struggles its way through July and August. This year it has remained green (with an occasional flower) until now. Veg has not done; annual flowers have not done; the grass has grown but not with its usual vigour. Today however it yielded a surprisingly large harvest of plums and damsons (which it usually does only every second year). Accordingly we have been in chutney and damson gin production. My granny lived (indeed was born and brought up in) the Lyth Valley and both damsons and sloes (that other great gin flavourer) were plentiful in her house. I was surprised to find damsons growing in our garden, but will be happy to be able to toast their existence in a few month's time!