Family and Frontiers

 After Ireland it was back to the UK. My already shortened stay in Wales was cut even more but the ferry problems, so a night in the Holyhead Travelodge was it for me. 

A train through London took me down to Surrey and another cousin. I hadn’t seen her in about 4 years since a family wedding and I had never met her son so I was thrilled to visit them properly. 

We had a relaxing Saturday catching up and went for a fantastic afternoon tea at a lovely hotel. Then Sunday was spent casually exploring the area, we found an old ruined abbey that had been built and rebuilt a few times over the years before being abandoned. 

There was also an old motte and bailey castle in Farnham that was really interesting to see, the deep ditch and hill still standing with a low wall encircling the top. 

After walking down into Farnham we found a food festival going on, it was absolutely packed with people and vendors. So we sampled some gins and bought fudge and had a light lunch in town. 

After a too short visit, it was time to go north. On the Monday I took a train north again to Newcastle on Tyne which is still on the English side of the border. I was lucky enough to find an old friend from the Turks and Caicos was in the area so she came down to meet me for a trip to Hadrian’s Wall. 

We first walked along the Wall up to Sycamore Gap, it was a tough climb up and down some steep hills. The Gap is just gorgeous with a single large tree growing between the hills with the Wall right behind it. The fields were all in use so it was a bit startling when we came across a small herd of cows that we had to walk through to keep along the trail. Luckily they were fairly uninterested in us,  and we also got to watch the farmer roll up on an ATV with his collie to herd the cows down off the hill. 

By the time we got to Housestead Fort, it was closing for the night. That was a bit disappointing, though we were able to walk around the outside and the walls were quite low so we could look inside. Housestead is home to one of the surviving Roman communal toilets. Imagine how pleasant that would be to sit and chat with friends!

Just as we were heading out a small storm whipped through, just pouring rain on us as we walked back to the car! So we stopped at the traditional roadside Starbucks to warm up. 

Back in Newcastle my friend showed me a few sites as we walked around. There is a monument to Earl Grey in the centre of down. He earned it for his contributions in tea making. Or maybe it was something to do with helping England? Nah, probably the tea thing.