How does that happen? One second my baby was making a highly dramatic entry into the world, the next my Puffling is 21 years old! Unfortunately Mac couldn’t make it to Newcastle for celebrations, and was much missed, but BB flew in from South Africa, and we flew in from Pisa to celebrate.
My Puffling loves Hockey, partying and fine dining. So he had found us Peace and Loaf where we had a fabulous tasting menu accompanied by the wine flight. https://peaceandloaf.co.uk
After a slight wardrobe mishap the next morning…
…we went to Barter books https://www.barterbooks.co.uk which was the most magical bookshop ever. It is housed in an old train station, full of old sofas and a cold fire, book shelves of old books, topped by poetry and linked by a toy train. At the back, waiting rooms now turned into a cafe with a wonderful breakfast. It just made you want to curl up with a coffee in front of the fire, soak in the atmosphere and disappear into the worlds of old books.
We mooched around Alnwick Castle https://www.alnwickcastle.com -I absolutely loved their sitting rooms, old masters, a cocktail cabinet, a bizarrely extensive collection of taxidermy animals. But we could definitely happily live ‘up stairs’ Then we went on the Dragons Quest, a spooky dragon themed thing before a well earned siesta awaiting the arrival of Puffling for dinner.
On the way back from dinner we passed a pet shop  hawking wares  I have ever seen, and I’ve spent time in Voodoo capital Haiti. Truly bonkas. That’s the  Christmas Stockings sorted for this year! Din
Next day, it was an early start for an excursion to the Holy Islands, Lindisfarne on a beautiful bright blue, if blustery, morning. Â We had a bracing few hours exploring the islands and their ruins, listening to the wind, the sound of the marsh grasses and the waves.Â
We went for a final early supper at Craster, a small village that BB had found when her Swedish grandparents visited. The setting was beautiful- the silhouette of Dunstanburgh Castle looking out to sea on the curve of the headland, cottages gathered around a little cove. Like all of Northumberland that we saw, there was  a stillness, an age to the landscape, history deeply settled into the stone and the water. It made you want to stay days here, pull on woolly socks and go for walks. We talked about the next time, that we would spend more time exploring this unspoilt county.
After a delicious supper of freshly landed Lindisfarne oysters and crab  at The Jolly Fisherman, https://thejollyfishermancraster.co.uk we went outside. A pink full moon was rising over the sea, and rocks which were gradually arising from the flat calm sea.Â
Then as we drove back a hare stood in the road. Still, Â calm and magical.
