Melee and manic milieu

I am fortified with porridge and a mug of tea so I am back!



Yesterday was frazzled amid me trying to bake a wedding cake (had to give in till today but I note the weighed out ingredients- especially cherries- are diminishing!!!).



We had worked out when we were going to at last decorate that small bedroom (which discussion H1 promptly forgot about and went into 'drift' mode again- drift mode can last a minimum of 7 years!) but threatened with no golf he remembered again but we have lost the carpet put aside at the showroom for us! thus H1 was emulsioning like the devil incarnate yesterday and was in associated mood.



Mayhem......In between moving furniture, moving house, reorganising the garage in order that we could store furniture there for the next house move, standing on upturned paintpot lid in dark, busy garage,myriads of phonecalls, lining cake tin, hairdresser visits, arranging hen party and- the best bit- visiting B in hospital (I could have done that the night before couldn't I when I paid my visit to Casualty but maybe 10.30pm wasn't such a good idea!).....



...oh!and a young folks party behind us which spilled out onto their lawn so their flashing 'interrogation' lights were on & off like yoyos lighting up the interior of our house at regular and scarey intervals. We couldn't even bribe the window cleaner to alter the angle down slightly to miss us!




But the room looks lovely even with bare floor boards!



Last weekend was the Late Spring Bank Holiday whereupon we visited-



the Grand Melee at Belsay. Introduced by the storyteller came knights , their Ladies, their squires, musicians and the jester who was hilarious.



Meanwhile in the calm of the rest of the gardens, the handkerchief tree and rhododendrons were resplendent in flower.



The laburnum and allium bed hummed and the croquet lawn cracked with the whack of mallet to ball.



England , my England; I should have hung out with John Betjeman who loved Edwardian England too


At Cragside we looked down on Rothbury through banks of rhododendrons (out much earlier this year perhaps because of the exceptionally dry, two months) and enjoyed the fragrance drifting from the last azaleas


before foolishly inspecting the Trim Trail.

I was going to write about...... but

I was going to write about Allendale's woods carpeted with periwinkle, wood anemone, and wood sorrel...... about verges and roundabouts yellowy, orange and sunlit with dandelions..... about Ridley Hall's lawns spattered with forget-me-nots ..... and pink campion and bluebells beginning to colour up in the Easter sun but maybe I won't.



It maybe that I am snatching the opportunity to blog because
a) the computer is free
b) H1 is not demanding me to view the Humax ( I must give him his due- he is always proactive in wielding the remote control in order to record television programmes!)
c)I am trying not to eat any more Easter eggs so I am keeping myself occupied. (this being the real reason!)



Even accompanying D3 on our 6 mile jaunt (I must be honest again- D3 running & me cycling) has done nothing to close my mouth & whittle down my calories.



I was going to write about gardening all Good Friday in sunshine and shorts.....yes! about my frozen to death, very expensive Avalanche clematis (dead as a dodo) and my eternal sweetpea which may well have gone to eternity to be with my grandiflora clematis, ceanothus, astilbe and Avalanche (according to the garden centre tickets I took a sneaky peek at- the latter will survive to -8'- well it didn't!)



I was going to scribble about our visit to Cragside with 11,000 bulbs planted in the formal garden; about our picnic up on Nelly Moss Lake........



On my camera I could not capture the cherry blossom petals drifting like snow across pavements so I won't write about that.



However as I dismantle my chick-laden bonnet, and consider how I am going to use up half a dozen hardboiled eggs (in a house where folks are egg allergic!), I can tell you that our Easter celebrations were brilliant! The joy on peoples' faces as folks paraded in their flower-covered bonnets, displayed their paste eggs (I still marvel at the ingenious ideas for decorating eggs),hunted for eggs and laughed so much as 100+ of us egg jarped till we got a King Jarper.



At home afterwards we had an egg hunt, a barbecue and played fun garden games with C,J,P,C and A. Today as it clouded over a bit we had a 'proper ' dinner and played 'Absolute Balderdash'. I have had a lovely Easter though I missed D2- but I am fagged out by all this jollity!

Land of far horizons

That is what the historian G.M.Trevelyan called Northumberland.




Cragside is ablaze with rhododendrons in May/June but it is a joy any time of year; National Trust so rather expensive for a family. We lost our lot in the labyrinth up beside Nelly's Moss lake. I like autumn there too especially Halloween events and Apple Day.



Lord Armstrong is my favourite Northumbrian- well so is Admiral Lord Collingwood-and Sir Bobby Robson- and St Bede-and Gertrude Bell- and St Benet Biscop- and Basil Hume and Grace Darling..... Armstrong was so clever- a water wizard and appreciative of others;so as well as Joseph Swan being first to create the incandescent lightbulb Lord Armstrong invited his pal Swan to Cragside to light his bulbs by hydro electric power.


We walked with friends above Wooler on Humbleton Hill- iron age camp , Gleadscleugh hill farm, Harry Hotspur raining longbow arrows on the heads of the Scots in the Battle of Homildon Hill; 'all around the purple heather' purpled for miles; buzzing and scented with honey.


If you visit National Trust Souter Lighthouse sup the broth and prepare yourself! Just when you think you have conquered your fear of the stairs winding up the wall, you realise the light still eludes you up the last ladder. We spelled our names in flags, tapped messages in Morse code and inspected the foghorn; peacefulness descended as we progged mats, embroidered and knitted in the lighthousekeeper's cottage. Ooh! and try Minchella's icecream at one of the kiosks along the Leas.