Rollin' with the top down...

Weekend out of the city is what the rest of my birthday week had in store. Helly, Will and I hopped a 7:00 train out of Kings Cross and sped off towards Helly's hometown of Rothbury.  We would be house sitting for her parents and exploring the countryside.  I had not been to Northern England yet so I was quite looking forward to it.  Plus I believe there is a big part of me that is a country girl at heart so spending some time in the countryside was sounding quite great after all my city time.  I do think Will was the most excited out of all of us...he couldn't stop smiling.
We found our reserved seats around a table on the train and settled in.  There was food and wine so start it off right.  We also realized that is was our half month anniversary of me being here (yes we will come up with anything to celebrate).  Kinda crazy to think that I am already half way

North Sea Beachside

  through my time here in London.  Anyway, that is for another conversation another time....let's talk about the trip.  After a 3hour train ride and a 45min taxi ride we arrived at Helly's home.  So quickly...about the taxi ride...there is a specific accent and dialect, I suppose you could say, in the north.  They even have there own words for things that I don't understand at all.  The taxi driver was trying to ask me questions and I only could get about half of it and then Helly had to translate.  Slightly embarrassing but I made it through and as the cabby said...I am a foreigner.  We arrived late so hopped right into

Dunstanburgh Castle

bed to get some rest for our big day out the next day.
The next morning we awoke to sunshine, which isn't a normal occurrence apparently, and got ready to head out on our day by the sea.  Helly's parents had so graciously allowed us to use their car so we walked out front to hop in.  Many of you know about my love of Volvos well this car we would be rolling in was a C70 convertible.  Yep, that's right, rollin' with the top down in northern England.  I did have to chuckle about the whole thing for a moment but it was awesome.  The wind in your hair and gorgeous nature all around.  We parked at

Check out the sheep posing for me!

 the castle end of the walk and headed off.  Now the plan was to get to this pub at the end of the beach before they stopped serving food so as Will and Helly said..."We had to get our shimmy on."AKA...move quickly.  As we started walking I was so happy!!  There was greenery, and beach and the sea all wrapped up into one little location.  As we rounded a curve and the Castle came into view it got even better!  There were these massive castle ruins just hanging out up on the top of the hill.  For ruins though they were pretty intact.  We didn't walk through the castle...no time..needed to get to the pub!  But really just enjoying it from the outside was quite enough.  After we passed the castle we wandered a bit closer down towards the sea and then walked the rest of the way on the sand.  I didn't take my shoes off since we were moving quickly but had plans to get in the water on the walk home.  We made it to the tiny town at the end of our walk and grabbed a table in the pub.  The food was so great and the view was beautiful.  Helly ordered a Kipper which is a smoked fish and is apparently a northern thing

Toes in the North Sea

so I tried some.  It was pretty good but a bit to strong for my taste.   before we headed back onto the beach we grabbed some ice cream for the walk.  The walk back on the beach was super relaxed.  The sun was still shining..the shoes came off and we just played.  It was great.  Now as you can see I put my toes in the water and that was ok.  The water wasn't too cold however there was no way that I would be going in all the way.  Will made the choice to get crazy and wade in then sprint back out.  It was a bit like he was in a triathlon and finishing his swimming

Go Will Go...you can do it!

part of the race.  Helly was cheering just like a good girlfriend should and I happened to capture the moment.  I think this might be my favorite photo I have taken so far this trip.  It just captures the spirit of these two, so fun and goofy together but each others biggest fans no matter what the moment is.
After will dries a bit we finished our walk and headed home to make dinner, drink wine and relax.  The night flowed along through bottles of wine, board games and card games.  There might have been some dance offs and singing but there is no proof so only the 3 of us will know the truth.

Nelly Moss Lake

Unfortunately the next day it rained.  It worked out fine though, we spent the day inside just relaxing and hanging out.  Sometimes a lazy day is just what you need.  We did venture out of the house to go to dinner at the only restaurant in town.  Yep, that's how small the town is....there is only one "nice" restaurant in town. It was really cute though.  It was in an old building with so much character.  Of course, Helly knew our waitress and her family.  I really do love small towns.  There is something comforting about everyone kinda knowing each other or knowing someone who knows them.  Dinner was

and another of Nelly Moss Lake

 delicious.  We walked home in the dark and braved some crazy stepping stones over a river and a small downpour of rain.  There were no horrible slips and I had an umbrella so the night ended well.
Our final day started a bit slow since Helly was a bit under the weather with a tooth ache.  Luckily she is friends with the town GP and got herself sorted and we headed out to another nature adventure.  Cragside was the location and it has a pretty cool story.  It was originally made and landscaped with all sorts of lakes so that the huge house on the property could run by hydroelectricity.  Apparently it was the first one in

Just a bit of how beautiful it is there!

the world to be powered this way.  The grounds were beautiful.  All these lakes with lovely trails around them that you can walk.  The majority of the whole area is very much like you are right in the middle of the forest which I guess technically you are but part of it has been created not just naturally occurring.  There also are driving roads within the area too so we drove to different spots and then would walk the trails around it. There were foot bridges and park benches to walk and relax.  I did love that it wasn't so manicured everywhere that you didn't feel like you couldn't go exploring.  We edged off the trail a bit every once in a while just to see what was out there.  There was a lovely area of the landscape that was created to be the formal garden.  It was planed with all sorts of colorful flowers and succulent plants in fun designs.  In the middle of it was the clock tower that just happened to chime while we were walking through. The formal garden was quite special as was one of the other trails that Will led us down that brought us to the flumes which were the trough like things that carried the water to all the places it needed to go to provided the electricity to the house.  It was a pretty cool spot because you had to

Just making hydroelectricity

    hike down a slightly muddy and slippery bit and then as you turned a corner in this lush greenery you saw the flowing water.  So beautiful!  We walked along it for a bit then decided that we needed to play some serious games of "Pooh Sticks"  No it's not anything gross and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that it is.  Anyone who loved Winnie the Pooh as a kid will know what Pooh Sticks is and if you don't sorry you were deprived as a child and you should learn about it.
That pretty much was the end of our adventures that weekend.  There was a small story about half a rabbit that I have left out...if you want that one you will have to ask me about it
I had a great weekend in the countryside.  You forget how much you miss the beauty and clean air of nature until you are back in it.  I love my city time but need my countryside too.