We’ve been internet for a while, so this post is going to be a pretty quick run down of the last week or so.

We’ve gone from London to Calne (stone circles, etc.) then onto Manchester for a stop over, through to Newcastle to catch up with Leah’s family, up to Edinburgh for a look around, off to the Isles of Mull and Skye for some outdoorsy stuff and landed last night in Belfast.

We didn’t know this manor was here, but apparently it was on some BBC show about restoring a manor. It was pretty cool, the garden were great and every room represented a different era. They also had top notch tea and scones. (The most amazing cream I have ever eaten in my entire life – Leah)

On our way to Manchester we drove through Wales which was pretty cool (Breathtakingly beautiful, green and in bloom, a bit Swiss-ish). We stopped at this really old tea house called something like Tu Huw I’r Bont (the Welsh language is crazy). The house is a few hundred years old, and has been a tea house since the 50’s or something. Leah fell in love with a scone.

Manchester was just a convenient place to stop, and we basically had dinner, went to bed and then had a quick walk in the morning before heading off. Pretty cool city, made almost entirely of brick. Lots of geese and the police just wander around chatting to people. The city was all but deserted on Saturday morning. Apparently Fridays are pretty big in Manchester.

We drove through Cumbria (Lakes District, predominately National Parks) on our way to Newcastle, which was pretty spectacular. It gave us a taste of the Scottish highlands to come, with huge mountains covered in stone walls everywhere, massive lakes and lots of slow drivers and campervans.

In Newcastle we stayed with a couple that ran their own bakery (She did, he is actually a Postman) and also a health food store, they were super friendly and made us amazing brekkies and even invited us to have  a sit down dinner with them and their dog, who was pretty rude and just watched TV the whole time. We also spent a full day with Leah’s great uncle John who didn’t take a breath all day, but instead spoke to us (literally non-stop) about the history of Newcastle and the UK in general, he also told us about how he doesn’t know much about these things, despite knowing everything about them. He and his wife took us out for a lunch to a restaurant in a 14^th century monastery which was great, and we went to their place for tea and to meet their dog who also watched TV. He also took us around and showed us all of the places of significance to my family - Leah

Newcastle is known for two things – bridges and trashbags. We went for a walk through the city (which is probably the best looking city both of us have seen) on Saturday night and it was just a sea of fake tan, tight dresses and loose bodies. We counted about 12 different hens nights – it was great.

On our way to Edinburgh we stopped at Alnwick castle, which we didn’t know much about. Turns out it’s one of the best castles in the UK. It’s been lived in by the same family for around 700 years (the Duke of Normandy, he and his family still live there during winter) and has been maintained and updated constantly (The also filmed parts of Harry Potter there, mostly quidich scenes). The inside was like a palace with enormous marble fireplaces, stuffed dogs, oversized cupboards and high ornate ceilings and lots of gold things. Unfortunately we weren’t able to take any photos while inside. The outside was amazing, there were towers and walls all over the place. The extravagance of the place is perfectly illustrated by the fact that the family had a whole river moved and entire fields landscaped so they would have a nice view from one side of the keep.

We also stopped at Holy Island, which you can only access when the tide is out. There is a great old sea fort here that we walked through but other than that it’s a pretty tiny town. It did seem to have a weird effect on old people though, we saw one old shirtless guy being arrested for god knows what, another in shorts and knee high socks behaving like a paparazzi and another dressed like Richard Branson wheeling a suitcase across the tidal flats seemingly from nowhere.

Last on the list is Edinburgh which has a pretty violent and awful history. Lots of torture and public executions, and a whole underground section that was forgotten for 130 years. We did a ghost tour of this underground section, which was basically made in the 15 or so giant archways of an old bridge, which ended up being entirely built in. Something like 30,000 people would have lived down here in almost complete darkness – the life expectancy was around 5 - 18 months for inhabitants. The tour was genuinely scary, and had Leah fumbling for her valium after the guide’s torch broke in a cavern that (according to the guide, but not supported by anything we saw) was the site of a lot of ‘encounters’. (And I swear I had encounter when the ghosts hid my valium!)

We went for a walk around the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens, saw the Castle, overheard some 80 year old ladies talking about their grandkids breakdancing and walked around like total wierdos as my feet and Leah’s knee finally gave way from all the walking.