Edge of Empire

Can I come clean? I’ve never been a big fan of England. Yes, I say this rather guiltily and apologetically. Yes, I was born in it, yes I lived there for 29 years but as a place of outstanding beauty, it would never have even made my top 20. Too much traffic, too many people rushing, heads down with no smiles, too much government interference, too much media paranoia – that’s been my unfortunate experience of the country. Maybe familiarity breeds contempt however as here we are in England, and loving it, seeing some truly beautiful and significant places, major milestones in world history, even World Heritage sites. Far from the noise and stress of the south, Northumbria and the Lake District are a real eye opener and do England proud. Seeing different parts of the nation through a traveller’s eyes has been totally refreshing.

Crossing the border from Scotland was typically inauspicious … the Scots had their flags waving and big welcoming signs; on the other side of road the English were damp squibs. We joined the very start of the A1 and followed it down to Belford, a tiny town between Lindisfarne, Berwick and Alnwick. The campsite here was quite extraordinary. Right in the heart of town down a bottom-clenching, breathe in lane, across the narrowest of bridges, Blue Bell Farm boasts the strangest of wildlife collections – Chinese ducks, doves, white rabbits and a cygnet roam free, totally unafraid. When dusk falls the semi-permanent human residents turn on their Torness-sapping fairy lights and the whole place becomes surreal and Disneyesque. We loved it, of course. The kids soon exhausted my supply of carrots and bread feeding the little pretties. Virtually as soon as we arrived however we dragged the kids away from the petting zoo and headed out to Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island. We crossed the causeway knowing that a couple of hours later there would be no way off the island, once high tide arrived. This proved a huge blessing … all the tourists were heading the other way and the car park was emptying in a mad panic. True, everything shut down once 4.30pm arrived, but we  managed to sneak in a couple of lattes first to tide us over until the tide turned back. We could explore the castle, lime kilns, the beautiful coast and the remains of the priories in total solitude without spending a penny. It was glorious. Lindisfarne is so peaceful, despite its turbulent history when those not-so-turbulent priests found themselves sacked and worse by the Vikings. This was the centre of some of the most violent episodes in England’s early history, but also produced some of the world’s most beautiful illustrated manuscripts and just down the road were blokes like Bede, who gave us one of the earliest histories of Britain. More history lessons then!

Once we’d walked our socks off we returned to the ghost village … with nowhere open to mooch or get any food, but that didn’t daunt us. We jumped in the car to take a look at the causeway flooding, but found we were almost out of petrol with the little orange light flashing ominously. Instead we walked some more, into the approaching dusk, watching the waves start to lap over the road. By the time we were turned by the tide the pubs were looking much friendlier with warm, welcoming lights. We took our time over a fantastic meal until the owner said it should be safe to attack the causeway again. Our little Huwy was all alone in the car park which had been heaving under the weight of tourists earlier and I was determined to eke out the petrol and get back to the mainland safely. It was with a fair amount of relief that we found a garage (due to shut within 5 minutes) and then crept back to our sparkly little farm for the night to sleep amidst the lights and the animals.