The debonair Basil Marigold's

Calke Abbey. It's another site ticked off the National Trust list of places to visit. It's an impressive facade, as you can see below. But the keen eyed amongst you may also notice that the facade could be described as looking tired.   And this is very much the point of visiting Calke Abbey. You can, as you traverse your way through the corridors and rooms inside, visibly see the decline from  a once hustling and bustling country estate to what it is now; a down at heel behemoth, its faded glories crying out from its internal fabric.

My wife had gone out so I took the children out with me shopping. There is a local supermarket nearby that we go to. It is a German company. The one where once they have scanned your goods, they then throw it at you to catch and put into your trolley. If you aren’t nimble enough, you get buried under your own shopping! As we meandered around the store, and we do meander, mainly because of my daughter. She has two gears; Dithering and meandering. This is particularly noticeable in supermarkets. It takes a little longer with her. So, while we were navigating the middle aisles where this German retailer seems to think that we may well need an ample supply of face crème, but also, to compliment it, an arc-welder. We bumped into our female next door neighbour. We said Hello, she said she had recognised my daughters voice. We chatted for a bit and we went on our way around the shop. We ended up behind her on the checkout, too. The shop was absolutely heaving. As we loaded our st

Berwick Upon Tweed. Arguably the strangest town I have ever visited. Mainly via the fact that everyone speaks oddly. Unable to speak in either purely English or Scottish. Berwick, like its people, are a product of its rather chequered history. Berwick is essentially a town that has frequently been kidnapped in its entirety and dropped into a new country. One day an English town, then the following day they wake up to Scottish overlords and repeat, for a few hundred years. No wonder it seems an amalgamation of two personalities which makes it difficult to pin down. It was therefore a little treat to finally visit the walled town. Neither the biggest of towns, nor the prettiest, Berwick has nonetheless a certain charm to it that makes it a place I very much enjoyed visiting. You can’t really put your finger on it but there it is, a quintessential charm. Berwick has something about it. Some quite gorgeous architectural gems pepper potted around the town and its river side. Th

We have arrived back in Northumberland. A current English county that was once a Scottish earldom, a kingdom before that, and before that it used to be two kingdoms; Bernicia and Deiria. It has had a very complicated history. It is though, a most wonderful place. We’ve visited quite a few times. It is somewhere you cannot fail to be impressed by. Historically fascinating, the landscape is both emotive and dramatic. It also contains one decent road, from which everything seems to be accessed from by car. Once you leave the A1 you journey on classic rural A roads/B roads which wind through some of the most stunning scenery in this country. Every day is a rally drive if you don’t use the A1! As I’ve said we’ve visited a few times now, but this time we have visited two places that we’d not covered before; Cragside and Berwick upon Tweed. Cragside is built onto the side of a crag (No, I am not sure how they decided the name of the house either!) A house that has grown glacially