Poor neglected blog!

OK, so I have been away, but that's no real excuse. I did in fact (mirabile dictu!!) have a perfectly good internet connection through my dongle, but couldn't get inspired to upload photographs to the lap top (horrible software, I need to install Photoshop on it and Have Not Got Around To It...) So, I was going to wait until we got home, got all wirelessified on the desk top, and go from there.

Well, first of all, the DSM had, not at all unusually for him, a back-from-hols wobbly. But given that he is still Not OK, this was a bit more distracting than the usual. So, although we got the pc back, it didn't get set up. Plus I had a wobble of my own (are we surprised? No, we are not.)

Today, teeth have been gritted and work is being done. I have a number of deadlines piling up, so I needed to tackle them. Got a wireless connection all right, but then it fell in a heap. Grrr. In the end, I put the photos on the laptop, even though I will do them on the pc as well - or can I fish for them wirelessly? Maybe I can, if I can be so clever........

Oh, phooey, stop moaning, woman....

We had a great time in Northumberland. Pottered about up and down the coast. Beautiful. Saw lots of birds. Nothing unusual per se, but nice stuff for us, like eiders and mergansers, and such joy, a Greylag goose with the sweetest little fluffy yellow goslings.

That was at Dunstanburgh Castle. Here follow some photos of around and about.





The coast is spectacular. We stayed on the edge of Boulmer village, cheek by jowl with the RAF base, but they were obligingly quiet. Very nice bungalow, which would be a delight to retire to. We were a short walk from the shore. We went up as far as Bamburgh, and down to Tynemouth - I had very dim memories of visiting there one dark night when I was a student, and meeting a penguin on the beach. No, I wasn't drunk, just very uneducated birdwise - it was, I realised many years later, a guillemot.





What in my memory was Bamburgh castle, wasn't; that may have been Dunstanburgh, I'm not sure now.



Bamburgh is ever so slightly a cheat. Although the foundations go back hundreds of years - and obviously so, if you look closely - it was completely rebuilt in the 19th century. Bit like out 17th century cottage rebuilt in the 20th - kind of.....I suppose.

Nice village, anyway, and we might go back for a long weekend. We will certainly go back to Northumbria as quick as may be somewhere.



And on the way home I finally got to stop at the Angel of the North. Even more powerful up close than seeing it from a distance. I just love it.

I mainly knitted whilst away. The tv was primitive - still analogue, no Freeview box. But this meant that we could catch up on all those West Wings I have been dying to see, so that was ok. I finished a pair of socks, and a cowl, and restarted the spiral throw so that it doesn't pucker. Looks much better now.

I will do a proper fibery blog post soon, and play catch up there. I need to go back to other stuff now - I'm busy organising something new at AH, and attempting to renegotiate the way the existing class works in the light of all the people who want to learn to spin (and isn't that great, or what?)

It is such an irony that just at the age when I am supposed to be retired (and I have the bus pass to prove it) there seems to be more going on than ever. And that is not a complaint!

And - can someone explain just why the Blogger spell check seems to have stopped functioning? (Off to check the site....)