Memorandum Monday - back from the Northern hills

The Tyne Bridge in the heart of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Roman road, no! really! Roman road

 We went to Northumberland for my birthday treat.
"Where do you want to go" asked Mr M after saying no to Ireland because I wasn't definite about exactly where to go.
"OOH I said, what about Morcambe, I would love to see the sculpture of Eric Morcambe that's there."
"Hmmmm," he said, clicking the mouse and staring at maps and stuff.
Several hours later he turned and said "We are booked into a log cabin in the same place we went to before."
"In Morcambe? We've never been to Morcambe before" There was a momentary silence and then he said
"AH, I got a bit side tracked, we are going to Northumberland now."
Oh that's great," I said, "We can go to Alnwick Castle and back to Cragside." Suddenly I was excited and really eager to be there.
The Satnav lady got a bit stroppy with us because we kept ignoring her advice. She never once shouted at us but you could hear the frustration in her voice when she told us to "take the second exit in this roundabout" and we took the first one because we were stopping for a loo break.

Top o' the world, Ma - ooh hidden dips!

We had a lovely time. We went to Wallington on my actual birthday. Fabulous house and lovely people there.
because we were in that bit of country between Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall there were lots of very straight roads and lots of hidden dips where the road ahead looked totally flat and straight but suddenly a car pops out of the ground.
I discovered that even though the satnav lady is very nice I like my book of maps and I feel kind of lost without it. I like following the roads across the pages and telling Mr M what number road he has to look for and what the name of the town is likely to be. I am a good Nagavator (as my cousin once called me)

The obligatory hat picture - actually I took three because
there were three different hats

We went to Cragside again. The first private house to be lit with electricity in this country. Mr M posed for the now compulsory hat pictures. It is such a fabulous house and they have a minibus for those of us who can no longer walk far. The restaurant was lovely and we spent ages in the shop. I got my National Trust passport stamped so I have nearly completed my second one.  So that's me on Monday. Back to the routine, well not really because I still have plumbers needing to come back and ... plumb and then I shall nee to get someone to do the floor and then I shall prepare for disruption with my plans for the stairs to the cellar................. more of that anon

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing.