Day 4: Monday 6th July 2015

Monday

We wake up to the sound of seagulls squawking on the hotel roof. I get up and look outside: the sun is shining from a blue sky; the castle and priory are still there. Which is good.

Downstairs, the choice for breakfast is wonderful: Jools has the Northumbrian breakfast and in a surprise move, I select smoked haddock and a poached egg. Jools gets a huge plateful, which means I get an unwanted slice of salted bacon and a sausage to add to mine.

We are both full and ready for the day. We check out and load the car. I call the warden for the island, getting directions to find the helleborines. It all sounds so simple. So, we drive back to The Snook, park up and begin to look. We find nothing.

Jools calls the warden again, the plants are caged and should be easy to find, 5 minutes tops from the car park she is told. We look for another hour and still find nothing, just more and more other orchids, and as beautiful as they are, none are what we came to look for.

At 11, we admit defeat and wander back to the car.

We drive back across the causeway to the mainland, and turn down the A1, back to Newcastle. Traffic is light, and with the bright day it is great just to be out busy doing nothing.

We stop at a greasy spoon for a drink and a bar of chocolate: the women in the cabin asks where we are going, and wishes us a good trip. It is all so pleasant, but then we are in the north, which really is a different country.

At Newcastle we take the A69 across country, skirting the edge of the Tyne valley, crossing the river a few times. This is a road we travelled last year, so we know well. We can’t be at the cottage until four, which means we have three hours to kill. We decide to go into Hexham for a wander, and in particular to go to the abbey which dominates the centre of the town. We can also do shopping at the supermarket on the way out, and so have our supplies for the week.

We park up at the edge of town and walk up the steep alley leading to the town centre. The abbey is open, and inside it is once again a delight; a Norman church with squat towers, but wonderful windows and other details. I run round getting my shots, first with the nifty fifty then with the wide angle. Other snappers with tripods look at me as if I didn’t know what I was doing. Little did they know, I did!

We have a coffee and a scone in the cafe: all very nice and civilised.

The supermarket is Waitrose; posh food. Which means we will be tempted by nice things to eat. I guess a hundred quid including beer, cider, wine as well as food for the week wasn’t bad.

We load the car and set off on the last 20 minutes to the cottage; we turn off the main road, head up a narrow lane, but miss the turning to the even narrower lane on which the cottage sits. We drive round, and come down the lane from the other direction; past a massive Roman fort, and there is our home for the next week.

Causeway House is the only house in England thatched with heather and is maintained by a charity: our rent helps to look after it.

Once inside we see it is as simple as described, but has a well appointed kitchen, a living room with books and upstairs, the bedrooms with views onto the underneath of the thatch. We will like it here.

There is no radio, no TV and no internet connection in the cottage, which means we will have to talk to each other or read books, play cards or other stuff that our ancestors used to do.

We dine on Insalata Caprese with some fresh bread and a bottle of Cava. It is simple but wonderful, and involves no cooking and little washing up.

Jools beads and listens to music from a pen drive whilst I look at the three days of shots and write this. Evening passes into night, and outside just the sound of the nearby cows lowing and the rain falling gently on the roof.

When we turn out the light, the darkness is total.