From Margaret 8-3-08

Hi! I cannot believe how this trip has whizzed by- it's already August! So many weeks have gone by ..
On Monday we drove up to Bamburgh Castle. It isn't like most castles because there are still apartments that you can pay to stay in! (There were places blocked off that said "PRIVATE APARTMENTS")
Bamburgh castle, in addition to being a castle, has an Aerospace Museum. It's not large, but has many pieces of things from airplanes and guns from WWII, and a huge gun that looks more like a tank. We enjoyed the view of the sea (however very foggy it was) and the towers and took loads of pictures!
What's a place that you can only go to when the tide is low? Lindisfarne Island, another Holy Island. This is an island where the Venerable Bede was ** (NO, not the cat, mind you,) and also St. Cuthbert. St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert had a monastery on this island, and we saw it's ruins. There was a map of what the monastery must have looked like when it was running. Magnificent!
There was also a museum on Lindisfarne that talked about what the different saints did on Lindisfarne and where they went from there. Surprisingly enough, there were lots of little shops and things as well.
When finished at Lindisfarne we drove back to the cottage.
That is just some of what we did in Sparty lea!
After we had checked out of the cottage and said Ciao to the birds we drove to the house of Dad's highschool friend, Adrian, and spent the night in his very old, beautiful Georgian house. 1700's! He was very nice and cooked dinner for us and everything.
After saying good-bye to Adrian we drove 200 miles to our hotel, and had dinner an hour later. And that's where I am now!

Best wishes to everyone and see you soon,
Margaret

** from Mom: Bede never went to Lindisfarne but somehow he knew all about what Cuthbert did there, when he wrote his Ecclesiastical (=church) History of the English People, around the year 731. Bede was a monk who lived at Jarrow, not far from his final (but not original) resting place at Durham. But that's another story.