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.