Just returned from a nice weekend in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is where we originally thought we would be living in England. Ok, so can you guess my first line? It should take about 3 or 3 ½ hours to get to Newcastle, but…...nearly 5 hours through traffic and road construction, we arrived. The kids were fabulous on the drive. I was so proud of them. We decided to head straight for the pool before it closed. I stopped off to order room service, set to arrive just after the pool closed. Then we set the kids up with a movie. So as 11:30 rolled around and X was still awake, we were ready to scream. Luckily though, he was up by 6 am. No wasting the day right! I took him swimming in an attempt to allow V and S to catch a few more winks. Then we all headed to breakfast and off to the Beamish Museum. Beamish is a world famous open air museum telling the story of the people of North East England at two important points in their history – 1825 and 1913. Beamish stands in 300 acres of beautiful County Durham countryside… Most of the houses, shops and other buildings have been dismantled, brought to Beamish and rebuilt here. Some - Home Farm, Pockerley Manor and the Drift Mine - were here already. All of the buildings are filled with furniture, machinery and objects, real artefacts from our designated collections. What sets Beamish apart … is that the story is told not by labels but by costumed staff …. We took a tour of a mine (even me, with my claustrophobia, I used to have trouble in the IDS tower elevators, but I did it. Of course, I was the only adult able to stand up between the beams!) We also toured an old dentist office, watched them make candy, visited the old school, saw the farm, visited the shops, etc. It was really fun and we only scratched the surface. Thanks H family for getting us in and providing the wonderful picnic.
That night we ate dinner at the mall, tried on swimsuits with no luck, and ate dinner. I sooooo want to spend a day in that mall child free. I guess it was the biggest in Europe at one point. We ended the day with swimming and a 10:30 bedtime.
What they were learning in school: 100 of the World's Great Men (Of course, they must not have been able to narrow a list of 100 great women:)
Belsay had incredible plant life, like the secret garden.
Sunday, we went to Belsay-yet another stately home. Are you tired of reading about these? I think we are tired of going, so we almost didn’t. But we were so glad we did! What a good recommendation. That is always the way. When you think, “I don’t know if I am in the mood for this,” you have the best time. To be fair, we skipped the house (it was empty for the most part anyway, I heard there was modern art in some rooms, such as a room filled with pillows) and headed through the nature walk and gardens, finding horse clues which lead to a beautiful crystal bead sculpture horse in the old castle ruins. The kids loved the trail and it felt like the Secret Garden. (S and I just finished reading it, I didn’t think she would be old enough to enjoy it, but she loved it.) We stopped for ice cream and headed for the Tynemouth ruins on the sea. They had a show going on with jousting and sword fighting. X was in heaven. Finally, we headed back to the hotel, more swimming, room service and bed by 9:30! Although I slept all of 1 hour! I am having a bad run lately. And even worse, I sneezed around 3:00 (you know how I can sneeze), woke V and he never went back to sleep.A trail of clues led us to the Crystal Horse.
Monday, V worked in Newcastle and I met K. We bought school shoes for the kids. S got three pairs. Plimsols (required gym shoes) trainers (tennis shoes) and black patens. We drove an hour north to Alnwick Gardens. They had really neat water fountains and gardens and a giant tree house to play in. It was wet and fun. We stopped off for ice cream, had dinner with the H family, bathed the kids and headed south. 3 ½ hours, not bad. Unfortunately, X was so tired he cried 2/3’s of the way home finally drifting off at 10 pm (10:30 home).Side note, we stayed at the Marriott, which is always nice. However, we had a bit of trouble with our air conditioning, our head board fell off the wall in the middle of the night and our safe jammed and had to be specially opened. A bit funny, but we would go back of course.
Also, a special thanks to hosting our time~H family. It was wonderful. D, we commend your incredible bravery and know you will be on the mend and flying down hills again soon. (Not to soon Mom and Dad.)
It was an absolutely fun, but full weekend. I think we are ready to be homebodies for a bit.
This picture doesn't do the rainbow justice. I have never seen one this clear.
