Souvenirs from Northumberland

We had decided to go away for last weeks long weekend. We had planned two different weekends depending on what the weather was doing in Scotland. Our west coast plan was to go to Mull and our east coast plan was Arbroath. However, when we looked at the weather neither seemed appealing. So we decided to skip over the border to Wooler in Northumberland.

On the Friday we arrived at the campsite, pitched the tent the headed to the pub for a pie and a pint. On the Saturday we went to Kyloe out of the woods for a days climbing in the sunshine. We then went for a nice coastal drive and stopped off for fish and chips.

Sunday was spent the morning wandering around Berwick and then in the afternoon we went to Lindisfarne. Whilst there we purchased some Mead. I have to say I was very disappointed with the Lindisfarne mead shop. It was full of chutneys and preserves that had their name on but when you looked closely at the label they were produced in Scotland and some of the liqueurs were produced in France. I don't have a problem with the shop selling produce that they haven't made but they should be more upfront about where it is from!

Before we left on Monday we stopped off at the local butcher and bought a fantastic piece of beef for a roast dinner when we got back. I have to say that Wooler really impressed us both, there were a lot of local shops and we only spotted two national companies. We drove back via Craster to first of all buy some Craster Kippers. We also wanted to have lunch at the Jolly Fisherman Pub. The pub was heaving and we were lucky to get a table. We had a round of crab sandwiches, kipper pate and Melba toast and chips. The kipper pate was fantastic and I think I will be making it with some of the kippers we bought. The chips were also great, cooked in dripping, yum yum yum. After Craster we stopped off at Chain Bridge Honey Farm. Andrew loves his honey so we thought that we should pick up some supplies. We bought some honey comb and a jar of honey. There were loads of honey based products like lip balms and candles.

As I said we went back and I made a roast dinner. As you can see we had the beef very rare, just as we like it. The meat was lovely and I am sure that we will back to Northumberland very soon. But until then we have the mead, honey and kippers to remind us of a great weekend.

Escape to the Country

When we first arrived in Scotland we did quite a bit of hillwalking. We started to tick off some Munros (these are mountains over 3,000 ft in Scotland and there 284 of them!). When Andrew came back to Scotland from Nottingham, he was really into climbing and that started to take up some of our weekends and others were taken up with PhDs.

This weekend the weather was supposed to be good so we thought we would take this opportunity to do a bit climbing and camping. So we headed to Glen Lednock. One of the best things about living in Scotland is that we can be in the highlands after driving only an hour and half from Glasgow. If you tried to do that from London, I expect you would have barely left the city!

Glen Lednock seemed like the perfect spot as there was a Munro and also some rock climbing there.

So we got there on Saturday afternoon and Andrew climbed whilst I found a sunny spot. I am sure that Andrew will blog about it soon on our climbing blog.


In the evening we had a BBQ and set up the tent, we didn't have time to prepare anything ourselves. If we do it again I am sure that we will. I did cook some bananas on the BBQ. I split them down the middle and filled it with some dark chocolate. I then wrapped them with tin foil and put them on th BBQ. We had a lovely spot with great views. There was also a pleasant breeze which kept the highland midge away.


On Sunday, we got up early and had breakfast and most importantly a cup of tea . . .


We then headed towards Ben Chonzie, its quite a small Munro at 913m, but we hadn't done one in quite a while so we needed it to be an easy one. It was still sunny and warm. As you can see from the picture below it was so hot that we were wearing shorts!


When we got back the car, we tucked into the cranberry and white chocolate flapjacks and headed home.

Not much cooking I'm afraid, but it felt so good to get out of city. When the weather is that good, you do wonder why you would think about going anywhere else.