Trip oop north #1

Can someone please explain where on earth 2/3rds of September just disappeared off to?! This has been one very mad month. Between August and September I've had three incomplete weeks at work, thanks to taking a Friday and the Tuesday after the bank holiday to go to Greenbelt, then the week after I spent three days oop north at a conference for work. Then I had a WHOLE FIVE DAYS (shock horror) at work, then we set off on holiday. So some of the time has been a little bitty. The weekends have been mad. I got back from the conference at 10pm on the Friday, then lurched straight off to the church open day on the Saturday (having baked some chocolate brownies to sell on the Fair trade stall in the meantime), then hurtled straight into the church patronal festival the next morning, then off to knitting group for the afternoon. Gardening has got a bit behind as I haven't been at home to do any.

Fortunately I got the OH's jumper finished in time for his birthday.

 He has got a head really.

 I'm rather pleased with it, and I love the pattern - very easy to follow and well-written, and easy to adapt to particular quirks so I altered the length of the body and sleeves to his preferences.

And sewed a label in the back.

The slow cooker has come in very handy (again). This is lamb casserole.

The conference (held in Durham, with a trip to Newcastle) was most impressive. We stayed in Collingwood at Durham University. Halls of residence have moved on a bit since my day, not only was my room en suite, but it even came complete with its own recycling crate, and a little shelf with aerial socket to put a TV on! Back in my student days in the Dark Ages you had to carry your recycling all the way to the supermarket car park to find a recycling bin. And whilst I did have a TV in my room at university, it had to sit on a wobbly little table supplied by me, with a wobbly aerial sat on top of it.

Most impressively, the halls also had a "green" policy, with loads of stuff about reducing energy use, the food miles of the food served up in the dining hall (very tasty it was too) and even the conference packs provided in the rooms were all fair trade! Apparently there is some kind of competition between the colleges about which has the lowest carbon emissions.

 We had various talks during the days at the conferences, plus a reception at the Oriental Museum one night. This is the sort of place where I'd love to spend more time looking round, and I'd recommend a visit if you're in the area.

and a reception at the Botanic Gardens another night. Again, I'd have loved to have seen more of this than I did, the bit I saw looked beautiful.

One morning we took a trip up to Newcastle on a bus, to visit Seven Stories - the centre for children's literature. This is one of the coolest places I've ever been, and there was plenty on the, er, seven storeys, of the building to keep adults and children alike entertained (don't worry, there is a lift). The exhibitions managed to combine interesting stuff for older people (like me), with more kid-friendly stuff, and there is a massive creating space for children at the bottom storey, as well as the biggest selection of children's books in the bookshop that I've ever seen in one place. I loved the exhibition about Puffin books, and found displays from some of my childhood favourites.

Plus, they had a display about what happens to their book collections when they arrive on site, which included something that I think should go into my job description:

See, I'm an expert and a bit like a detective!

It was also fun driving around Newcastle on the bus, and admiring the views.

including a glimpse of the Angel of the North as we approached the city.

On the final day of the conference we got to visit the new exhibition space at Palace Green (the university special collections library), where there was a display of Treasures of the University. I also trotted off for a quick trip into the cathedral.

It was a great trip, I only wish I'd had more time to visit places in Durham - I did return to Newcastle with the OH this week whilst we were on holiday, more in a future blog post!

Second honeymoon part 1

For our first wedding anniversary we decided to return to Stratford-upon-Avon for another week's holiday. We went there on honeymoon, but only got 5 nights away due to difficulties getting time off work, so didn't get to half the places we intended to. We booked to stay in the same flat this year as we'd liked it so much.

We travelled down on the Saturday and found a lovely independent bookshop in Thame on the way, called the Book House. It has two puffins sat outside its front door, one called the Fat Puffin, one called Muffin! I would love to live near a shop like this - it had a great range of books, including an enormous children's section and a little garden you could sit in too. I bought a copy of the Morville Hours by Katherine Swift too, a book I've been meaning to read for ages.

On Sunday I went to church at Holy Trinity, Stratford, where Shakespeare is buried. It was fun going somewhere different to my usual church - at this one they sang the hymns twice as fast as at home!

Then we went to The Lunt Roman fort, just outside Coventry.  c. 2000 years ago this was the frontier of the Roman empire (slightly hard to imagine now, with the traffic noise from the A46!). But it's a fun sight, lacking all the usual tourist amenities (no overpriced tourist tat on sale, no extortionate admission fee but there are loos and a few picnic benches). Bits of a mock Roman fort have been built on some parts of the archaeological dig, so you can climb on the ramparts and pretend to be a Roman legionary, and go in the gyrus (a horse training ring, this is the only known example in Britain).

And on to Coombe Abbey country park, once the site of a monastery until the Reformation in the 16th century, then a country house, with grounds designed by Capability Brown in the 18th century, the park now belongs to Coventry City Council, although the house itself has been sold off and turned into a hotel. And it's really lovely. Although the part around the car parks and visitor centre are quite crowded, it's easy to get away from those into peaceful woodland. You can walk part way round the lake, and visit a bird hide (parts of the site are designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and there are lots of herons nesting). There are formal gardens and a deer park to explore (but we only saw some sheep). There is also the pleasant and reasonably priced herons café on site, where we had lunch, and later a cup of tea.

On Monday, we did some shopping in Stratford town centre, then went for a walk along the River Avon, up one way, crossed over, then walked back along the other bank, stopped to watch some barges go through a lock on the way. One barge was called "Cheeky Monkey" and had monkeys in the window...

Tuesday we headed over to visit Charlecote Park, a National Trust property not far from Stratford. It dates from the 12th century, although most of it is mock Tudor (actually 19th century) in appearance. The rooms are huge and there is a restaurant in what was the Orangery, as well as a garden centre (at which I may have indulged).

We then drove on into Warwick, where we had a cup of tea conveniently close to Warwick Wools and I bought some Sirdar Simply Recycled DK to make one of the patterns from the summer Interweave Knits. We also visited Warwick Books, where I picked up an Alan Titchmarsh gardening book. We also had a look in Warwick Museum - which was rather good. Small and free, but well thought out with displays aimed at all age groups. If you're in the area it's well worth a look. I took a picture of a plesiosaur, which died out about 65 million years ago, as it reminded me of reading Remarkable Creatures for reading group last month.

Then it was back to the holiday flat ready for an outing to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see the Merchant of Venice. Unfortunately the OH had done his back in that morning so I ended up having to go on my own. And WHAT a disappointment. Bad signage meant I couldn't find the entrance I was supposed to use, then I was sold a programme for a different play (despite showing the seller my ticket), by the time I'd sorted that out and found the entrance the play had started and they'd given my seat(s) to someone else and I got shoved behind a pillar! Then it turned out to be the biggest load of complete rubbish I think I've ever seen at the theatre - involving an Elvis impersonator, Batman, Robin and a blue teddy bear cavorting round the stage. I left during the interval...

To be continued....