Barely having had time to recover from the Northumberland trip, I headed over to Tewkesbury to enjoy a wonderfully funny evening being entertained by Ron Beckett. If you don't know who he is, Rob is the toothy Londoner regular on Mock The Week. The show lasted about 2 hours. He engaged in a lot of interaction with the audience, which showed how quick witted he is. His prepared detail was also excellent. After the show he was by the exit just to shake our hand...

Today we bade farewell to Northumberland - after treating the car to a wash as it had spent the week sleeping under a bird toilet! 30 mins into our journey we stopped off at a Little Chef for breakfast. While I opted for the classic Olympic Breakfast, GS went for the American Style Breakfast, which he thoroughly enjoyed. We then joined the A1 traffic heading south, which was heavy for the entire journey, though moving steadily apart from a 15 minute delay due t...

As has become customary this week, our final full day in Northumberland began overcast but brightened up for the afternoon, and again it was dry! We started with a short stroll round the corner to gander at Alnwick Castle, which is still the home of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. The highlight is a chance to wander through the state rooms which, as you'd expect, are amazing. Then we revisted Grannies for a lovely lunch, where GS showed how much more ma...

The morning in Alnwick dawned rather drizzly, but we didn't mind as we were heading to Hadrian's Wall, where it was overcast but dry, and the sun even made a late appearance. Our first destination was Chesters Roma Fort. The Roman legions (well, two soldiers) were in attendance, one of whom demonstrated to GS how to make a Roman coin. Later, they were drilling new recruits but GS turned down the opportunity to join in - I think he thought the drilling boring. H...

Today dawned overcast and pretty windy - and stayed that way. Nevertheless, we set out to explore three castles. Etal Castle was more of a fortified Tower House that was built to withstand the frequent attacks in an ongoing feud with neighbours from the nearby Ford Castle. However, it also played a role in the ongoing border raids with Scotland, and was briefly captured by the Scottish army before they were defeated at the Battle of Flodden. The free audio tour ...