The Weekend - Day 16 and 17 + Monday 18th

Day Sixteen:  Saturday.

Great weekend.  It's now Monday morning and I'm sitting in bed with my hot lemon with the view I've become so used to (and will miss after I leave) - the north sea rolling up the longsands of Tynemouth.  Not too much beach showing but the tide is going out.  It's 5:36 and surprising no man nor dog on the beach yet.

Saturday was the day of the conference organized by the Northumberland and Durham Family History Society.  It was held in an 200-year-old inner city church.  I was happily able to squeeze in 15 minutes at the Tynemouth Station Market (my last opportunity to do so ☹️) before getting on the train up to Newcastle.

For the past little while I've been in correspondence with someone called Sylvia who lives in the West End of Newcastle.  She had contacted me through Ancestry in regards to Dennis's DNA results. Dennis was showing up as a match to a friend of hers.  But oddly enough she herself has been studying Hudspiths for decades.  We became quite friendly just generally via email and today was the day when we would meet in person.  We got along just as well in person - so that was nice.  

The conference itself was enjoyable despite the fact that I found none of the four presentations all that riveting.  But the catered lunch was great and I had some interesting chats.  One fellow in particular was a dead-ringer for a Michael Palin character in Monty Python.  I would have been fascinated just by his delivery but he was also a very nice and interesting fellow.  An immigrant to the North East from Lincolnshire.  

But one good thing that happened was that I was able to put aside the odd experience of last week when I went to the office of the society.  Today the chair of the organization sought me out as she had learned that I was interested in volunteering.  They are desperate for volunteers.  This is a problem for many organizations (Manitoba Genealogical Society included).  I've been trying to sign on to help for the past year or so but because of lack of volunteers I haven't been getting anywhere (your basic vicious circle).  There is always transcribing to be done but I thought I'd put myself forward to look after social media as the NDFHS Facebook page hasn't seen any activity for almost two years and there are almost 1000 people following it!  The person who was doing it got into a huff and left apparently.  I fear that this may not be terribly straight-forward but I feel up to the challenge!

ℹ️ Returning to my earlier comment about the tide going out.  It's actually still coming in.  Out of curiousity I checked the tide table for the Longsands and it's quite interesting how day-to-day the time of high and low tides can be quite different.  Not in any illogical or random way of course, as it's all to do with the moon, and google tells me that during each 24-hour day the two high and two low tides occur almost an hour later than the day before.  So there you go 😇 

Day Seventeen:  Sunday.

Sunday began early.  All my days start early but today I needed to be outside the Gibraltar Rock to be picked up by Priory Coach for a day trip to the Lake District.  Oh goody!!

The Lake District is in Northwest England and is one of the most beautiful parts of the country and has inspired poets and writers for centuries.  It is the land of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter and so many more.  It was an occasional holiday destination for Mum and Dad and me.  Bowness-on-Windermere in particular, and anything within hiking distance of there, holds many precious memories of mine.  

ℹ️  "Mere" as in Windermere is just another name for a body of water. Other terms used in the lake district include "water" as in Ullswater and "tarn".

The coach worked its way up to Newcastle with a few stops on the way to pick up people and then we headed west and basically crossed the country!  Lovely Northumberland scenery which turned into lovely Cumbria scenery.

England has Rest Stops like nothing in North America that I'm aware of.  Not all created equal of course but one of the best is Tebay on the M6.  As you can see from this map, we travelled quite a distance before stopping because the driver wanted us to experience the best in rest stops!  We were not disappointed.  Great place to eat and shop and go to the loo.  Worth quoting from their website:

My view while enjoying a toasted teacake and a pot of tea

We were the first family run motorway services on the UK roads. There are no franchises or fast food on our forecourts. Instead, a Farmshop selling locally produced food, a butchery featuring meat reared from our own farms and a Kitchen serving homemade dishes produced daily using local ingredients.

Proper food with locality and a sense of belonging is at the very heart of everything we do. We believe proper food matters. So we serve it where you’d least expect it—on the motorway.

We arrived at Bowness a little after twelve and found that the rest of the world had decided to visit that day as well.  Bowness is a tourist spot and always has been busy but it felt much too much so. I think what makes a busy destination feel so not like the 1960's is the traffic.  Cars and coaches tumbling all over.  But that aside it was lovely to be there and I thoroughly enjoyed tootling around for a couple of hours.  

Oh, and by the way, Peter Rabbit says hello. 

The parking lot for coaches in now privately owned and you can only park for 3 hours so Priory adds another destination to this itinerary.  So off we went to Keswick - 20 miles to the north of Bowness - and 20 beautiful miles they were.  While Windermere is a busy lake with boats and activities, many of the other "waters" of the lake district are peaceful non-commercial places.  

As we negotiated our way through the narrow streets of Keswick to the coach car park, the driver pointed out the Pencil Museum.  I am

so glad he did as once off the bus I made a beeline for it.  I've always wanted to go but had forgotten that it was in Keswick.  Just my cup of tea.  Literally, actually, for after thoroughly enjoying the museum the nicely inevitable cafe served a most refreshing cuppa.

The only other thing I will mention is that I met a really nice woman on the bus called Sue who lives in North Shields.  We had so much in common (appreciation of Alan Bennett and David Hockney being the first wonderful discovery) making for great conversation.  I think we will keep in touch.  

Day Eighteen:  Monday.

I'm now back from my Monday outing so I think I'll throw in Day 18 in this post.  This was my shopping day in Newcastle.  Very nice it was.  Got a few nice things but the highlight had to be lunch at Fenwicks.  Think Eatons in "the day".  Lovely Newcastle department store.  While it's changed quite a bit from the Saturdays when Mum and me would get the bus up to Newcastle and have elevenses in the Fenwick's cafe (frothy coffee - yum) at least (unlike Eatons) it is still there.  Had a lovely lunch which was finished off with a Peach Melba.  I had every intention of taking a photograph of that peach melba but had seriously ploughed into it before remembering that intention.  Sorry.  But it was VERY GOOD.