Where Do I Begin? - Part 4

I’ll be brief on this last part as I’m fed up with myself now!

Because of the position of the hotel we didn’t have very many choices left for places to visit.  We couldn’t visit the Lakes again, it was just too far.

We therefore opted to visit Hadrian’s Wall which was only about half an hour away.  We found a visitor centre in a fabulously named place called ‘Once Brewed‘ and were pointed in the right direction.   And amazingly further down the road was another place called ‘Twice Brewed‘.

Hadrian’s Wall was rather a wonderful sight.  If we hadn’t have had the children with us we probably would have walked a few miles along side the wall.    

As it was, it turned out to be a very windy day and although you can’t see from these photographs, the wall led up to a very steep incline which took you out onto open land. 

It fair took your breath away. Not only from the scenery but the strength of the wind.

As you can imagine also, the roads were very, very straight around this area.  It was quite funny in some parts as it looked as the road just stopped as you were driving up the steep areas.  Much to the amusement of the children.

Because of all of the fresh air one of my children fell asleep so our options became limited for any more walking.

However, I had a plan.  When looking at what was around the area I’d noticed signs for ‘the most scenic railway’.  As the weather had been unpredictable I thought that this would be a good idea to do.  We would be inside the train and see some of the lovely countryside as well (not that we hadn’t already seen loads of it mind you!).

So we headed back to Alston and made our way to the scenic railway.  Only it does help if you get the right railway doesn’t it?

In my sheer stupidity we ended up at South Tynedale Railway which was very sweet but only took you on a half hour journey instead of where we should have been which was the Settle-Carlisle Railway. 

Still we managed to get a nice cuppa and hot chocolate off the lady on the buffet train of the South Tynedale Railway and they were very, very  nice people.

Back at the hotel we decided to eat in the lovely bar area again.  The night before we had all had a fantastic meal and the children’s menu had been great, so there had been something for everyone.

Not so tonight!  A different chef was on and the meal I had raved about the night before, that I had recommended not only to my mom but my niece just wasn’t as nice.  My niece also had a hair in her food and one in my son’s.

The waiter was surprised when I asked if it was a different chef.  But you could tell the difference not only from the taste, which was bland, but the presentation.

They did right by us though and refunded part of the meals.  The chef sent out a card with his apologies hand written on it and some home made truffles.  But it was just another glitch.

Ne’er mind.  The children were still having a good time.

Oh yes and did I mention that during our stay my youngest son fell from the top bunk bed!  I had just walked in to our room where he had been playing with my sis and he’d climbed up to get a magazine he wanted to read with her.

As I was walking towards the bed to talk to him, he over reached for his magazine and just fell.  Thankfully my sister had put a huge pouffe underneath the bed as part of the den, so it broke his fall and gave him a softer landing.

He smacked his chin on a shelf on the way down and I’m pleased to say no other damage.  But for that split second it was sickening to watch.  I wasn’t near enough to help him or catch him and just had to watch with horror.

So not the best weekend I’ve ever organised and hopefully you can see why I was on a bit of a downer about it.  But like I said before, the children thoroughly enjoyed themsleves and for me that counted for far more than anything else.

On our journey home we decided to stop off at Morecambe which the children thought was fantastic.  We spent a great couple of hours on the beach, eating chips and building sandcastles.  We also engineered a waterway from the beach to the sea so the water could flow back to the sea and it worked. 

I’ll have to ask my sister for a couple of piccies.  We were really impressed with ourselves anyway. 

It was a great family piece of team work!