I am smitten with Britain

Can we just agree right now that there is no trip like a road trip. My friend Neil, pictured next to my crazy self, had some business in the North of England and offered to take me along, as I had never been. We drove and drove for 5 days straight and in doing so covered Northumberland including several little villages and New Castle, the Lakes District, Holy Island and a bit of Birmingham. I go cuck-coo for road trips and I think this picture proves it. It rocked and just deepened my already robust love true love for the whole of the UK, but England in particular, as I do live here and have seen much.

I know, cows are everywhere - but clearly these are my cows and they deserve some blog space. One thing I love about Europe is how open things are. These cows graze in a pasture that includes a walking path to a beautiful castle ruin site. I had to stand here for a while, but they did get curious and came to check out what was what with Becky D. If I ever manage to put together a crew, I'm calling it the Cow Crew. Not a lot of street cred, but it's better than a Crew called the herd, right?

Neil goes to a Steam Rally every year near a cutie northern village. I tagged along having no sense of what a steam rally might entail. I was fully prepared to mock, but actually, it was really neat.

The lakes district is surely one of the most beautiful areas England has on offer. I thought as beautiful (but very different) as Cornwall.

Of course the Tyne Valley holds the Tyne river. I do so love a good river, and this is indeed a good river.

I am at the beach here. The sandy, beautiful, dune lined North England beach just past Holy Island. A ten minute drive from here led me to some amazing fish and chips. I just can't describe how ideal and perfect everything was on this trip. The weather, the scenery, the food, the villages, the accents, the people, the whole thing. I loved it. LOVED IT. I wish I could go back and back and back. It does make leaving that much more of a bummer, I have to say.

Hadrian's wall. Amazing. gorgeous. ancient. powerful. and so beautiful.

And here is a couple pictures of lovely New Castle's revitalized river front.



I can't get over my constant running into these guys, no matter where I am - or that's what it seems like to me anyway. This little space invader is on the exterior wall of a pub off the New Castle high street. Cracks me up.

A great success this trip and thanks to Neil I got the tourist stuff and the local stuff. It was excellent and as always, I am grateful.

Fun with Friends

The luck of life is truly mine. I have such wonderful people in my life, and I continue to get these moments of fun and frolic in their company. For example, Daph, who lives in Kabul at the moment, met me in Amsterdam. River cruises, coffee shops, wanders that last hours - it was fantastic.










Helen and I had opportunity to do the Hope not Hate show, which featured many fab bands, my fav of course, was Alabama 3.












I also had the joy of a visit from Corrie who is loving her relocation to Texas but who misses London as much as London misses her. We went horse riding and restauranting and had tons of fun living as if she was still just around the corner.


More fun and frolic to come as it's summer time now and opportunities abound.