Monday 12th October

The morning began with Mathew opening some of his Birthday presents before Breakfast.  We left in very unpleasant weather - lots of drizzle, dull clouds and so much spray on the road!  Traffic was heavy at first but soon sped up to a normal pace.  On the radio they said there had been an overturned vehicle but we saw no evidence of this whatsoever...!

We finally arrived at Wetherby Services at midday when we had some lunch.  When we continued it seemed to be brightening up but when we arrived in Middleham the drizzle had come down again.  Surprisingly we were not the only people deciding to visit Middleham Castle in this weather...!  I took some candid shots of Mathew with Richard III before we continued onward.

We soon arrived at our cottage in Alnmouth which was down some really windy and narrow streets, but the owner was there waiting for us and greeted us as we got out of the car.  He showed us around the place before leaving us to it.  It was a very small cottage, with a nautical theme running throughout.  The kitchen was narrow but had lots of storage space - Mathew felt it was rather like a galley kitchen!  Up the stairs there were two bedrooms which we had the choice of - one was blue and white and had lots of angles and panels in the ceiling.  The doors were quite fun too - probably meant for children but it was a really nice room!  The other one was also quite cosy but the decor more normal.  The bed in the latter of the two was more comfortable, so we chose this one - it also had a wardrobe in whereas the other one had drawers only.

Back in the kitchen, the kettle was put on and we had tea with a slice of cake after we unpacked and Mathew opened the rest of his presents.  We went outside for a little wander around the town centre to have a look at the menus in various places when we wanted to eat out later in the week, before returning to the cottage and settling down to watch Strictly!