Tuesday was Jane’s birthday and, having read about Corbridge on this blog, she wanted to re-visit the place of her and Bill’s births. So we all hopped in the car and spent the day prowling the riverside, the shops, the church and all the little streets. Bill was able to clarify which building was formerly the Bridge End Maternity Home (the one at the end of the bridge, duh).
We could buy an apartment in the annex for "only" £275,000. Do you think I should swap my house – probably 3 times the size – for a river view? I don’t really think I’m up for it. Rivers flood, you know. It’s the only really exciting thing the weather does over here.
We browsed the art gallery again, perhaps Bill’s favourite of the day. I sent them ahead and nipped into the fabric shop across the road. The day Vivien and I were there, the shopkeeper was on holiday; on this day she'd taken a half day for a funeral. Jane and I decided it was only decorating fabrics anyhow. I only realised on the way home I could have taken photos of the raku clocks in the gallery, but didn’t think of it at the time.
Bill steeled himself for Bishops Yard and drooled over all the lovely things just like I did. He told me I was a horrible person for exposing him to such awful temptations. Turns out he didn’t want anything but the biggest of items, big in price and duplicates of what we already own and love. Jane and Chris were quite taken with the RE shop and I can tell you that the wine bottle chandelier is now sold. As is the Biba poster out of the other shop.
We stopped for tea and cakes at Tea and Tipple – they bought four different kinds of cake while I was in the loo: ginger, coffee, vanilla and plum. That was Jane's birthday cake, of course. Though they were all lovely, I could only nibble at mine. Sugar just doesn’t suit my stomach. About 2 pm we had lunch at the Black Bull – I really am a creature of habit in many ways.
We stopped into Craftworks at the Forge, and Bill fell in love with a goose wearing a plaid pinafore with a few words embroidered on the front. We debated on whether he should buy it now in case it was gone when we returned. Chris said that it surely would only apply to the four of us, but a woman standing near us assured us that we weren’t unique in this. I couldn’t believe he was serious about buying it, but he did when we were supposedly on our way back to the car. As it happened we got waylaid by a path along the river and walked about a mile to where an amazing old (renovated)
mill house sat overlooking a millstream diverted off the Tyne River.
At one point a flock of ducks greeted us expectantly. Jane guessed that office workers in the area brought their sandwich lunches down to the river to share.
Bill sat his goose down to see if the ducks responded; of course they were smarter than that. When we got home he promptly sat her in the front porch.
In the evening for dinner we had smoked salmon on crackers, a pork roast that had been simmering away in the crockpot all day, savoy cabbage, which Jane told me ages ago she loves but can’t get in Australia (Chris had never seen one), also roast parsnips and, finally, champagne. I think Jane enjoyed her birthday; I definitely did.
So, what shall we name the goose?
3 comments:
Poor content and typos? Come on, it’s a personal blog. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I hope he/she is not reading my blog…
It looks so pretty and serene there. I do love the style of the buildings.
Jersey Mom -look at the goose!!
Yes, now we have it, I can just tell him to go talk to the goose!
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