Holidays!

A couple of weeks ago we snuk away for a short, much needed break. It was a last minute thing, we found a late deal on a cottage in Seahouses, Northumberland. We've never visited this area before but will definitely be visiting again! After a bumpy start to the holiday (more on that in a minute!) we had a wonderfully relaxing time. The beaches are great, with lots of rockpools, stunning views and for unknown reasons, hardly any people! The pic below is Bamburgh Castle and beach.
We took a boat trip from Seahouses habour to the Farne Islands, an amazing sea bird sanctuary.

Where we were surrounded by thousands of sea birds. For me the most amazing part were the puffins. We were able to stand just a couple of feet from them! Whilst back at the cottage I'd been lamenting the lack of internet connection or even moblie phone signal on this tiny island in the sea I did get a call and took a wholesale order.

There were so many more things we wanted to do, and we could have done more - but for that bumpy start to the holiday....

We set off on the Saturday.

Due to a road closure we had to make a detour, it took over 2 hours to travel a distance that normally takes 40 minutes, which is when the car began to fart great plumes of smoke from the exhaust. We decided the only option was to turn around and go home, hire a car and set off again. We figured we would make it to the cottage late in the evening.

But no. When we finally made it home we started contacting car hire companies, they all closed at midday on Saturday and re-opened on Monday morning.

We arrived at the cottage on Monday afternoon. It was a 3.5 hour trip! But it was worth it.

The visit to Alnwick Castle and Gardens was spectacular. The kids loved playing in the water features - this is encouraged by the owners!
We had lunch in the amazing Treehouse Restaurant and played on the rope bridges.

So even though our short break was even shorter than expected, this is a place we all want to visit again.