The day started early today for me! Sunrise around 4am as it happens, when my inability to sleep continuously for any length of time let me down again. Unable to settle, I got up, and headed to the upstairs lounge that has that big picture window.
Although there was a big dark cloud along the horizon to the east, the rising sun fought intensely to show itself, even if it was just in little slivers parallel to the sea.
Hopefully, if I do wake again at this time, I’ll be able to witness a cleared sunrise & get some decent photos of it!
I did try and go back to sleep after a while and managed to doze through until about 8:30am. Better than nothing I suppose.
Turns out Mum had her sleep interrupted, but hers was by Alfie, her doggo, who was restless, and as I vacated the upstairs lounge, they both went in. Mums morning was worse than mine as she let Alfie out in the garden and he promptly rolled in a pile of fox sh1t, so she ended up spending the next part of her morn giving Alfie a shower down.
Eventually we all ended up congregating around the kitchen table and having a light breakfast, all the while deciding what to do. Not easy when there’s a sudden & heavy downpour as the sky went black.
Thankfully that cleared, as we packed up and headed the 0.3 miles up the road to Boulmer Beach Car Park. A £1 spent for 2 hours parking and we headed off back south down the sand.
Beach-combing for nice shells and red, blue and green ‘sea glass’ (the rarer colours), we meandered past our cottage and down the coast almost to Foxton Bay.
We walked back past the carpark and along past ‘our local’ pub (yes, I can do that) and to a specially built shepherd’s hut filled with lovely artwork for sale by local artist Jenny Allan.
Our 2 hours was almost up so we headed back to the small but full carpark and let someone else have a go.
We’d decided to drive down to Amble via Warkworth and its stunning hilltop castle. Coming in to the village, we were greeted by a stream of red Mazda MX5s all in really good nick. We lost count and with driving, I have no photos or record, but we all would say somewhere between 25-30 cars! It was great to see! Subsequent research suggests it was the MX5 Owners Club Tyne Tees, who organise regular trips up the coast road.
When we got into Amble, albeit the roads got quite narrow and busy we were able to get to a decent (and once again £1/2h stay) car park near the harbour.
A meander to the crafty ‘Pods‘ at Amble Harbour Village on the quayside eventually led to the purchase of some taster packs of ground coffee for me (there’s a French Pot here), and a 3ft tall carved log section depicting a Green Man face.
My mum also got to sit on a bench on the harbourside that is dedicated to a relative of ours, Auntie Teasey, which was a nice add-on!
My slice of toast input was wearing thin and I was getting somewhat peckish. That meant a Chippy tray & cheeky birds, that knew exactly what they needed to do. To be clear all of us had chips, not just me, including baby Spadgers.
From there, you’d think we’d hang fire for our pub tea, but then we walked past Spurellis, who have an incredible reputation for Gelatos and Ice cream. I have no idea what we were thinking but Jane & I had two double scoop cones between us! (£11, fyi!). Jane had chocolate and toffee fudge, and I had double strawberry and cherry & cream.
Bloated, and now at risk of explosive bowel movements (we’ve found that Ice Cream can do that to us), we decided to head back to the van.
I know we’ve not seen or experienced Amble as much as we should so it’s a definite “back there again if we can”.
Then we started heading back towards home, via Alnmouth and a pub in Lesbury where we’d booked a dog-friendly table for our tea.
Unfortunately our initial experience of Alnmouth was ‘Crap parking facilities’. But then again, I doubt the 18th Century smugglers that helped it prosper after being wiped out in the 14th C & then the Black Death cared much for the large scale storage of Jaecoo SUVs.
We did have aa great estuary walk though and then headed north along the beach though after finding a spot.
The dogs loved it! Toby headed straight into the water, but for Alfie this was a whole new game. Egged on by Toby, he got brave and had a go, bless him!
The walk took in the estuary and then a walk along the the side of the ‘oldest 9-hole links course in England’, which I presume means there only one or two, not being a golfist.
Another 2h parking stint almost expired (this time free), before we headed the very short trip to the Coach Inn in Lesbury, where we fed the doggos in the carpark before heading inside and negotiating a slightly earlier access to our table.
We all ended up ordering food, and all of us ended up leaving plenty of the lower cost items (chips and salad). But we had decent food at a good price and we managed not to fall asleep at the table!
Then, we’re back at the cottage where we’ve been chatting, snoring (dogs especially so), writing blogs, crocheting, and I’ve started tinkering with some paper and might have a go at a watercolour painting whilst here. Seems only right in such a tranquil place, surrounded by such fluid beauty.
And that’s a wrap! Bedtime now and we’ll see what tomorrow brings, weather wise first, plans second!
Night, night! (Although it’s still daylight here).