retrospective holiday diary day 1: travelling north

We went to the Lake District last “summer”; this “summer” it was time for touring the other side of the country: Northumbria.

The holiday started on Thursday 20 September: a drive up the A1 from York to Alnwick (pronounced /ˈænɪk/, “an-ik”)

It was raining as we arrived around lunchtime. We parked, put on waterproofs, and went to find a café. As I was eating lunch, I thought: “my foot feels wet”. I checked, and yes, I had worn a hole through the sole of my shoe. Well, I have been wearing this pair for most of the last three years. Anyway, not a good situation given we will be doing a fair bit of walking in the wet. (Not serious walking that needs proper walking boots, of course: I know better than to wear inappropriate footwear off road.)  So after lunch, off to the local Clark’s shoe shop (coincidentally about 100 metres from the café), where I bought some new shoes “to go”, leaving the old ones in the bin. The new ones, fortunately, are nice and comfortable; maybe I should try buying another three pairs like them using the web…

As it was still raining after lunch, we went to the one second hand bookshop planned for the break: Barter Books. A good big airy place, in a converted railway station: they have made good use of the facilities, using waiting rooms as cafés. There was also a splendid mural on one wall.  We bought four books (three non-fiction, on engineering mathematics, formal logic, and the psychology of self-deception, and an SF novel) and a poster.

Then off to find the B&B, and a restaurant for dinner (by which time it had stopped raining, but was now dark).