Some Lake District views. The scenery was awe inspiring.
Hello there! I am now back from my hols and raring to go again! How have you all been? It feels like ages since I last typed into this reasonably sized box.
Anyway, I have some proper blog posts coming up this week about various things that I have done over the last fortnight but here’s a rather lazily put together taster of what’s to come and a bit of tiresome mimsy about what we’ve been up to!
Alnwick Castle and Aira Force waterfall.
The highlights of the holiday for me were:
1. Edinburgh, about which I will write more in a couple of days but bloody hell, it was amazing.
2. Returning to Alnwick Castle, although there was less to see than I recall and the rain was horrendous, which dampened our enthusiasm just a tad.
3. Seeing the ACTUAL telephone box from one of my favorite films, Withnail and I, which was filmed very close to where we were staying.
4. Meeting Dave’s former university housemate Erica for the first time.
5. Seeing my old flatmate Ben for the first time in ten years!
6. Wonderful bracing walks with spectacular views.
7. The Lakeland shop in Windermere.
8. The Metro Centre in Gateshead, which has ALL THE SHOPS.
9. The brilliant Rav 4 lent to us by Toyota and Mumsnet to test drive while away.
10. Scenic and fascinating Brougham Castle near Penrith.
11. Housesteads Fort on Hadrian’s Wall, which awakened a long overdue interest in Roman history in the boys.
12. The gorgeous houses everywhere in Cumbria and Scotland. I was agog at some of the amazing houses we drove past during our various adventures and have been daydreaming over houses for sale in the country ever since. Cor blimey. Why can’t I be rich?!
13. Coming home two days early to our cats. No seriously, I missed them so much.
Brougham Castle near Penrith.
It’s probably no surprise to anyone that my sons are just as geekily into history as I am and this trip away did a lot to fuel their fascinations with Medieval history, the Romans and Scotland, which pleased me very much. I made a point of buying them a selection of history books everywhere we went to supplement their already huge collection and am looking forward to a few more special trips in the next few weeks.
Hadrian’s Wall and Ullswater.
I know that I announced that I was planning to finish From Whitechapel while away but erm that went a bit wrong! I completed a few chapters but then hit a thorny research issue that none of the books that I had with me could resolve which meant that I had to shelve it until I got home. Argh. I’m on the case now though so expect a bit of news very soon about dates and stuff.
The Withnail Telephone Box.
I don’t know how many of you are fans of Withnail and I but it has been one of my favorite films ever since I was a grumpy teenager and my mother of all people suggested that I might enjoy her favorite film which, as she put it, was about ‘a couple of unemployed actors who decide to go on holiday to the countryside’. Luckily I looked past her rather unprepossessing description and I’ve adored it ever since. And also quoted it at each and every opportunity.
You can’t go to Penrith where the bulk of the film is set without feeling tempted to ask locals ‘Are you the farmer’ and inform everyone that you meet that ‘I’m not from London you know’. However, this time we decided to take it further and went in search of the phone box that Withnail uses to call his agent while away. To my delight it transpired that others have had the same idea as there was a book in the phone box for fellow Withnail fans to sign with their favorite quotes from the film, most of which are rather rude but hey. How amazing is that?
Holyroodhouse Palace.
The major highpoint of the trip was the day we spent in Edinburgh, which I will be writing about in full in a couple of days time. Suffice to say though that it was wonderful to be there during the Fringe (my husband went to a couple of shows which delighted him exceedingly), to see my friend Ben (whom I’ve missed terribly) and to finally see the absolutely amazing Mary Queen of Scots exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland, the display about Minette in the National Portrait Gallery there and also Holyroodhouse, former home of Mary Queen of Scots. It was a very special day and I’m already making plans to return as soon as possible to see people and visit a few more things.
I am actually half Scottish in that my father is a Scot and I was born and raised there but I left Scotland when I was just eleven and this was only the second time that I have returned since then, shamefully enough. I’ve always felt rather ambivalent about my Scottish heritage for various reasons too tiresome and personal to recount here but something happened while I was up there last Monday and I returned feeling actually really proud to be Scottish and wishing that I could spend more time there. I will be going back, hopefully before the end of the year, but in the meantime I have the boys on a diet of Tunnocks tea cakes and wafers so they too can celebrate their Scottishness…
Minette in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
I may not have managed to do much work on From Whitechapel but I DID get to grips with the first chapter of Madame, the sequel to Minette, which should be out next Spring. Minette was essentially a young adult novel about the exiled Stuarts and wasn’t meant to be romantic (I was amused and a little confused by an Amazon reviewer who dismissed it as ‘a romance’ when I’m fairly sure there was sod all romance going on in it! What would I know though – I only wrote the thing!) or particularly deep HOWEVER Madame will be an entirely different kettle of fish as Minette is now married and grown up which calls for a slight change in tempo, I think.
Happy cats all snuggled up on my bed on our first night back at home!
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