Bamburgh Castle Revisted ~ August 2019 ~ 2

Categories: Adventures · Anglo~Saxon · castles & ruins · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · History · medieval · museum · photography · Victorian era · WW2Tags: · · · · · · · · 22 Comments

Part 1 HERE After a good wander around the grounds we went to visit the museums. The first museum we got to was the Armstrong & Aviation museum, which houses some of the stuff that Armstrong produced for WW2, and some stuff from WW1. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take notes or many photo’s in this museum, I’m not sure why it didn’t float my boat,  however there was a really nice vintage car that I liked. We also visited the Archaeology Museum and saw some nice bling that they had dug up. The pieces were incredibly small, but…

Bamburgh Castle Revisted ~ August 2019 2019 ~1

Categories: Adventures · architecture · castles & ruins · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · History · landscape · medieval · people · photographyTags: · · · · · · · · · 28 Comments

Sophie and I last visited Bamburgh on a rainy day in June 2016, when our planned boat trip to the Farne Islands got called off due to the rotten weather, and it was the nearest place to hand. In summer this year Sophie’s chap came over from Spain and he got to choose our destination, so back we went to Bamburgh and spent a sunny day there. For readers who were not followers back then, here is the history of the castle, the rest of you can scroll down 🙂 THE HISTORY BIT, mostly from wiki with added extras There…

Staindrop and St.Mary’s Church – August 2019

Categories: Adventures · architecture · Church · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · Graves · History · photography · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · · · · · 35 Comments

After Sophie and I had finished photographing the butterflies at Raby Castle, we decided to go and have lunch in the nearby village of Staindrop, and visit the church there. Staindrops earliest history begins in Neolithic times, though there is little left to see of that as the current village is built on top of it. Nearby roads and settlements bear evidence of it’s expansion in Roman times. The History Bit It is known that the first church in Staindrop was a saxon building made around 771 when Alhred was the King of Northumberland, but not much else is known…

Raby Castle Revisited Again! – August 2019

Categories: Adventures · flower · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · gardensTags: · · · · · · · 43 Comments

The thing with some places, like Raby Castle, Alnwick Castle, and a few other sites not part of English Heritage or National Trust but run privately, is that you buy a ticket to get in to the place, which isn’t always cheap, but allows you to visit as many times as you like within a year of buying it. Raby Castle is well worth a few visits and though we’d been back in May, we wanted a return trip to do the butterflies in the beautiful gardens there, always a spectacle. This year was the year of the painted ladies…

Aln Valley Railway – July 2019 – part 3

Categories: Adventures · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · History · people · photography · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · · · · 25 Comments

Part 1 HERE   Part 2 HERE There was plenty of interesting train and WW2 paraphenalia to look at and photograph   I thought this would make a nice biscuit tin! There was also a concert and these ladies were called the Seatones and did a cracking job of singing 40’s songs This chap was a bit of a character and I had to get a shot of the rear parcel shelf of his car So that’s the end of our day out at the Aln Valley Railway. All pictures by me and embiggenable with a click. Full album can be…

Aln Valley Railway – July 2019 – Part 1

Categories: Adventures · Event · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · landscape · museum · people · photography · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · · · 28 Comments

While Sophie and I were visiting the Stephenson Heritage Railway, (post on that HERE) a gentleman saw us taking pictures, and came over to tell us we might like to visit the heritage railway that he was involved in, the Aln Valley Railway.  Great idea we thought, and we decided to go when they also had a war re-enactment thing going on. The aim of the volunteers is to reopen the Alnwick to Alnmouth railway line.  The original station in Alnwick is now home to Barter Books so a brand new railway station and visitor center has been constructed by…

Cragside – Rhododendrons June 2019

Categories: Adventures · animals · flower · Fuji · FujiX-T2 · gardens · landscape · nature · people · rhododendrons · stately homes & estates · UncategorizedTags: · · · · · · · · · 33 Comments

It’s cold here in the UK, the summer flowers have gone and the autumn leaves blown away, so let’s take a walk through the estate at Cragside and remember warmer times. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” Rachel Carson   “Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature”. Steve Maraboli “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” Laura Ingalls Wilder “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”…

Stephenson Heritage Railway – June 2019 – Part 3

Categories: Adventures · B&W · FujiX-T2 · industry · landscape · museum · people · photographyTags: · · · · · · · · 30 Comments

Part 1 HERE  Part 2 HERE After we finally gave up going for rides, we got to look around in the workshops,with the lovely gentlemen explaining things to us. Some fab old tool boxes in use They had had some Thomas the Tank faces made for the front of the big steam engines to make the kids smile, but the people who own Thomas the Tank wouldn’t let them use them, so they just hang in the workshop. I mean, what harm would it do really? ‘Bait’ up here is Geordie for lunch They let you drive a train up…