A.breathe of sea air

Ella came on FaceTime to talk me through all her drawings. She thought there were around 100 so it took a while. When I asked what her plan was for them, she told me she was getting them framed. Maybe not all 100 Ella, though of course they are all masterpieces. She also though September would be a good time to go back to school

I persuaded Mr C that as the tide was out it would be easily to keep a distance, (while staying alert and saving lives) if we went to the sea coal beach south of Alnmouth. It can lonely be reached after half a mile of very rough track, so is never busy. In the past we have taken the children there as they like to climb on the dunes. It was wonderful to be a5 the sea again. We went to the beach via via Church Hill where there is a Contemporary wooden cross on Church Hill, now separated from the village by the river.

“The Northumberland Coast has a long association with early Christianity. Adtwifyrdi or Adtuifyrdi ("at the two fords") is the name used by the Venerable Bede, and is believed to refer to the confluence of the River Aln at its mouth with a tributary. Here, according to Bede's account in Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, Book IV, ch. 28, Archbishop Theodore presided over a synod in 684 in the presence of King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at which bishop Tunberht of Hexham was deposed and St Cuthbert elected Bishop of Lindisfarne. A 9th or 10th century cross found on Church Hill, to the south of the village, lends credence to the idea that the area had a role in pre-conquest Britain.

There is evidence suggesting the formation of a monastery at Alnmouth, in the form of records of Eustace fitz John granting land to the monks of Alnwick Abbey in 1147. A church of St Waleric at Alnmouth is known from court records to have existed by 1305, although its precise location on Church Hill is uncertain, and it is known to have been in ruins by 1771, when it was illustrated as a roofless Romanesque and Gothic style building with nave, aisle, transept and a small porch.“