Back at Work +1

Mutterings continued.

Barney and Missy, the Syrian bears, are off to Queensland tonight. They had their physicals and weighed in at 265kg (him) and 135kg (her). Lots of media interest in general anaesthetics and examinations. When I left work the bears were in their crates ready to be driven to the airport. Bye guys!!

Off to Scarb. tonight for dinner at Plakas - will it be kebabs or f and c's??

Today's This Time Last Year:

Good run down from Scotland into Cumbria. We were headed for a lovely farmhouse in Haltwhistle on the Western arm of Hadrian's Wall. Construction of the wall commenced in 113AD and the eventual length was about 80 miles, running from Bowness-on-Solway in the West, to Wallsend (appropriately enough) in the east. The wall acted as a barrier as well as a look out as it consisted of a series of turrets and milecastles, behind which were a number of large forts. Hadrian's Wall website. An 81 mile long walkpath has now been construction, so it is possible to walk the entire length of the wall.

First stop was Birdoswald Roman Fort, a live archeological excavation site, and museum. Excavation had stopped for the season as the weather was becoming unreliable. Two fort structures had been built by local school children under the guidance of the archeologists.










Lanercost Priory, built in 1166, was our next stop along the wall. We arrived at the same time as a busload of OAP's from Penrith, Wales so joined their tour group. It was a lovely warm day and it was nice sitting in the shade, eating icecreams and pondering the fighter jets flying overhead. We saw two at Dunkeld, 1 at Birdoswald and 2 at the Priory. Noisy bloody things there were.



The B and B was just lovely - a farmhouse with cats, thick stone walls, that we liked to think were stolen from the wall and solitude. It was at the end of a very long lane and we were convinced at the time that we'd missed it. There were four other people staying - a couple from the south of England, and a couple from Sydney. Sometimes there's no getting away from other Australians.

B and B website.