Heaven - Haven...

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And so in the blink of an eye, it was time to come home (but in happy mood as Rufus Wainwright is touring again next year and this morning we managed to get excellent seats for his Glasgow concert next April :-))

Downstairs for a lovely breakfast of cereal, toast, cheese and fruit and a lovely pot of tea.  David had poached eggs on sourdough bread with avocado and says it was delicious.  

Before checking out, I took some photos inside the hotel including The Great Hall (see extras) then it was time to head home.  

We opted to come back the coast route stopping at Alnwick (no trip to Alnwick is complete without a stop at the amazing Barter Books.   We had also planned to visit Alnwick Castle Gardens but it was just too warm to be outside for long.

We stopped off at Seahouses and had lunch in the Bamburgh Castle Inn then had a quick stop at Bamburgh Castle.  After that it was a straightforward drive home (well until we hit rush hour on the Edinburgh by-pass.) We pulled into the driveway just before 6.00pm and R pulled in behind us with Lola.  Perfect timing!  :-)

Lola again had a ball staying at R's.  She was all washed as she'd been a bit of a bog snorkeler when he'd had her out early this morning.  He showed us a photo.  Yikes!  She was filthy! 

The sun was still shining so we decided to get a Chinese takeaway for tea and sit outside to eat it.  It was still 28 degrees at 8.00pm!  

As we sat outside we heard a strange noise a few times and I thought it was coming from the plant room of the pool, then Lola started barking at the sky and we couldn't work out why till David moved and saw a hot air balloon about 20 feet above the house.  The noise we heard was the flames roaring in to the balloon to take it higher.  Unfortunately by the time I got my phone from inside the house, the balloon was much further away.  It was quite a sight even though there was a slight panic for a moment that it was going to land on our roof!


Heaven—Haven 
A nun takes the veil
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be 
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
Gerard Manley Hopkins