Kielder Forest & Dam

A couple of weeks ago Hubster and I had a week off, with nothing planned.  At the start of the week him and me went to Whitley Bay for a couple of days, but when walking along the sea-front we found we really, really missed our Ruby pup, (who was staying at home with  my daughter)

So, once back we decided we would go away again, just for one night, and find somewhere Ruby could come with us.

We were heading to the seaside again - Morecambe, we thought, but it was bank holiday weekend and most places were booked or not dog friendly.  In the end, a pub in Kielder Forest popped up on my Google search - The Black Cock Inn.

So we would head there.  Now, this wasn't a case of getting the dog to jump in the car and off we go, Ruby is very travel sick - like, very!

We had a lining of an unused guinea pig cage which we filled with towels and put on the back seat of the car, then cajoled her in.  THREE times we had to stop on our journey of 1.5 hours to clean up the puke.  (Well, Hubster cleaned it up, I walked the dog around to settle her stomach - I think I got the best deal!)

The last few miles of the journey to the pub was through the forest park itself, and very beautiful it is too.  

Past the reservoir and dam...

... and onto the little village called Falstone where the pub was.
We booked in and got shown to our room.  Small, but nice and clean and comfortable.

But the best thing was when we settled down for lunch they had a doggy menu.  What a genius idea!

We had taken Ruby's own food of course, but we thought she deserved a treat as she had been quite traumatised with the journey, so she had a big bowl of delicious food, which she enjoyed, as you can see.

We had a snack as we were planning dinner that evening.

To earn our dinner (and my plan to have a good amount of wine) we took a walk from Falstone to Kielder Dam, and across the Dam itself.

It was a good hike, through forest paths, then all of a sudden, at the top of a hill, the reservoir appeared.  Beautiful.

We walked across the dam, which is much longer than it looks. Ruby was superb, I kept her off the lead and made her "sit" when a car passed, it was great training for her and relatively safe as the cars are supposed to go really slowly when crossing the dam.

She looks so interested in her surroundings here...

After a brief stop and a photo taking session, it was time to head back over.  This is the dam from the far side.

Time to head back to the village and pub, the wine was calling.

Back down through the forest...

Hubsters FitBit app showed we have walked 4.3 miles. Not too bad for an afternoon stroll.  It doesn't look that far on this screen.....

..... more impressive on this one I think   ;)

The little face (that's Hubster) is where the pub is, and I am sure you can see the Dam  :)

Anyway, time for dinner.  Vegetarians look away as Hubster is a carnivore, and he enjoyed a gammon steak  (Ruby enjoyed bits of it too - she wouldn't eat her own dinner as she realised that something nicer came out of the kitchen in this place!  Not daft are they?)

I had a Filo Pie with goats cheese, mushroom, spinach and redcurrant jelly in it. Most delicious.

Then Ruby went for a play in the garden with "Zak" while I topped up my wine level and Hubster threw tennis balls for the next hour.

Ruby doesn't usually bring back things we throw for her, but after observing Zak for a while she started to bring back the ball and drop it at Hubsters feet.   Clever girl!

We did another small stroll after dinner, but the midges were out and biting quite hard. So we weren't out too long.  Long enough to find a kid's play park with a zip wire though, so we had a few goes on that - at 11.00pm at night.

We slept very well. Ruby slept very well too, considering she has never shared a bedroom with us, she settled down on the floor on her bed and snored all night.  We did expect to have to keep pushing her off the bed, but she didn't even try to get up.  She might have been too shattered after her walks.

Breakfast was delicious, but Ruby was tied up in the bar (not allowed in the breakfast room) and I was concerned about leaving her too long, even though she could hear us, so we ate and run.

We decided we were going to walk until Ruby was so tired that she would be too tired to puke on the journey back.  And that's what we did.  All morning we drove a few miles, then got out and walked for an hour (as that was what the ticket on each car park was)

The views around Kielder are amazing, and surprisingly it wasn't busy at all, considering it was a bank holiday.

We walked through woods, through forests.....

.. around the lakeside paths...

and collected fir/pine cones for a project I have in mind.

We then stopped for a late lunch at a pub called The Anglers Arms right at the far end of the lake.

They served a lovely nut roast topped with goats cheese.

He had a burger.

Then we felt guilty for eating it, so had another hours walk before setting off for home.

We were right though, Ruby was too tired to get wound up and puke, she slept all the way home!  

Result!

The North Lakes Tattoo Convention

Every year I am a little bit envious when the North Lakes Tattoo Convention is on in Carlisle, this is because it is usually the same weekend as the Flame OFF, which is a convention for Glass Workers held in Uttoxeter, and we are usually away attending that show.

But this year it was on the weekend before.... so I just had to go didn't I?  Hubster isn't into tattoo - he obviously doesn't mind mine, or at least he says he doesn't!, but he is clear skinned all the way through.  So I went with more like-minded people  ;)

WAS NOT going to spend any money, after all the Flame Off was the following weekend.  WAS DEFINITELY NOT going to buy a tattoo.

So I watched as my sister Julie sat down for the most beautiful Peacock  (she wasn't going to have one either!).  I wanted it!  

I hate feathers, but there is something about Peacock feathers that are quite stunning I think.  I just wish they didn't flap them about so much.

Isn't it beautiful?

By now the buzz of the machines was calling, Shona and I were just wandering about looking at the amazing art work when I suddenly found myself leafing through Jason Corbetts design book.  Jason specialises in black work and dot work, and although all of my other tattoos (way too many to count) are very brightly colours, I felt drawn to his work.  After a chat about swirls and curls and paisley patterns, he agreed to tattoo me.  He free-handed a beautiful paisley dot work pattern on my arm, then got to work tattoing it on.

I love it.

Poor Shona was abandoned as Julie and I got tattooed, but once we were finished we decided that she should have something too, it wasn't fair for us two to have one and not her was it?   We found a great artist called Rich Pearson who had a pretty butterfly design.  Before long all three of us had decided to have similar butterflies.

Shona asked for something "not too girly" and Rich suggested a traditionally coloured style, in black and red.   Not a colour she would have gone for and initially she dismissed the idea, then changed her mind and went for it.  I had planned purple and teal as my colours, but after seeing how fabulous her colours looked I changed my mind and went for those traditional colours too.
Julie stuck with purple  :)

Shona's....

Julie's.....

Mine....

Now hang on, that's two tattoos for Julie, two for me, once for Shona.... she needed another  ;)  We are SUCH bad influences.

 I should say at this point, that Shona was already tattooed, in fact her number is twelve right now, so it wasn't a totally inappropriate suggestion, although her Granddad would say different.

She chose this gorgeous lady from Alex Bage, she had to wait a while to get a slot, but so worth it.

As well as tattoo artists there was stuff for sale, clothes, bags, jewellery etc....  I found a cute little stall to buy the other little girls in my life a little gift.  A fabulous unicorn dress for Hope.

And a tattoo design jacket for Ellie.

There is a tattoo convention in Blackpool in August.  I think we might be visiting  ;)

A walk around the Oxford colleges

We were in the beautiful City of Oxford a couple of weeks ago.   

Now, for those of you that don't know, we live in Carlisle, but Hubster is from "down South"  (Born in London, brought up in Abingdon, just outside of Oxford)

So, we do pop down there from time to time to visit relatives and friends, but as our time is quite limited we usually end up just visiting and have never really done the tourist thing of exploring such a beautiful place.

Until we popped in to see my friend Sandie.    

After a lovely home-made lunch and conversation, she was surprised to hear that I had never actually been into any of the colleges that are part of the University City of Oxford, so guess what?  we jumped on a bus and set off   :)

Sandie's son, Richard really knows his stuff about the area and was giving us a proper guided tour with loads of really interesting information.  I would suggest to anyone that getting a tour guide would be worth every penny as there is so much to find out about this wonderful place.

Now, do forgive (and correct) me if I get names and places wrong, I was clicking away and scribbling notes, so I am hoping that they all match up.

The first thing that amazed me was how you could go through a small wooden door, just off the high street, surrounded by retail and coffee shops, and walk into this amazing 'other land'.  A big square of green surrounded by beautiful buildings and huge 'chapels' that were more on the size of cathedrals!

How can this happen?  How can all this be just behind a high street?  

This is Exeter College.  I wanted to go into the chapel as I love old church buildings, but there was a wedding going on so we couldn't.   The wedding guests were very nicely dressed though  :)

Just look at those pointy arch windows, such a beautiful shape.

We walked back out onto the street and around, down and across (I have no sense of direction and I could never repeat the steps we took) to All Souls College and the Radcliffe Camera.  What an amazing building that is, I didn't get the best photo, but click on the link to see better ones.

Then it was onto the Bodleian Library - this place has SO many books as I believe I remember being told that it gets a copy of every book issued in the UK.   We didn't see the books (it was a very late afternoon trip out) but we stood in the room above them and imagined just how many books there were under our feet.

Look up, you will see that the ceiling is stunning, all hand-carved no doubt.

Some scenes in Harry Potter were filmed in this building. 

Back out into the rain where we passed the Bridge Of Sighs, which connects two parts of Hertford College.

Our last college to visit was Magdalen College - pronounced at "Maudlyn.

I couldn't resist snapping this beautiful stained glass piece.  I love stained glass.

It was getting dark outside now, so my photographs are not so good, but this was inside the chapel.

As was a copy of the Last Supper painting by Leonardto da Vinci.  This painting is HUGE, I am not sure if it is a size-for-size copy, but I didn't expect it to be quite so big.

I loved walking down these corridors and I learnt that they are called cloisters - isn't that a great name?  It means the covered walkways around the quad, which in this case is the pretty green grass in the centre.  I wanted to run through them singing songs from the Sound Of Music - for no particular reason.  But I resisted.

This is the view from the cloisters.

And we got to look inside the dinner hall, set for dinner.  Can you imagine all the scholars in their robes sitting their meals?  It's almost like stepping back in time, or into a film set.

Magdalen College also boasts a Deer Park, which happens to be featured on Trip Advisor as an attraction  :)

As you can see the weather was getting a bit pants at this point, but we did spot some deer sheltering under trees in the distance.

The final visit of the afternoon was a trip to the Ashmolean Museum to see the Egyptian exhibits - as I love that kind of thing   :)  Obviously, having been to the Cairo museum to see their offerings, nothing quite stands up to that experience, but it was a really good exhibit, and free entry, so if you are passing, do pop in.

And that was my trip to Oxford.  Maybe over the past few years we should have taken time out of our hectic visiting schedule to go and explore, but family and friends are a little more important. Pairing up the time with visiting friends and sight-seeing was a perfect alternative.

Thanks Sandie and Richard for your everlasting patience, sharing your knowledge, the wonderful food and hospitality and an amazing day.