Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday....

Monday.
A sunny morning, although very windy, which made it feel colder than we expected. Because the weather forecast for the rest of the week is not great, we decided to take advantage of the sunny day to go somewhere new. 

A bit of research online had shown that there was a woolshop in Morpeth, which is a town that we hadn't been to before. Morpeth is about 40 minutes drive south of Beadnell, but because of yet more traffic lights on the A1 where they are cutting back the trees, it took us an hour to get there.

It is a decent sized town with a good selection of independent shops and some of the usual high street big names. We have finally sussed out the "disc parking" scheme. You go into almost any shop, and buy a parking disc, which looks like one of those cardboard clocks that go along with the disabled parking badges. You set the clock for the time you arrive in the car park, put it on your dashboard and that's it. You can then park, for free, for the time allowed in that car park. (Usually between 2 and 4 hours). 

The cost of these miraculous discs? £1.00. How long do they last for? Forever. Or until they come to their senses and realise just how much money they are losing out on!
Seriously, most of the "council" Carparks in the whole of Northumberland run the scheme, and once you have a disc, that's it. Job done.

We found the wool shop, and Sally got what she wanted from there. We then had a look around the town, and had a bite to eat at a small cafe called The Wheatsheaf, which was really nice.

We also spotted another cafe nearby which had a sign in their window saying that they were "almost award winning in 2016". This had us scratching our heads. Why would you make a big thing of not having won an award. 

The route back was always going to have been different, and I made sure we came back the scenic way via the coast road. We took in Newbiggin-by-Sea, which was a dump, and stopped off briefly at the village of Cresswell, which had a tiny car park overlooking the sea. It was too windy to get out, and we didn't stay very long.

Once back in Beadnell,  I set up our Amazon Fire Stick to work on the TV so that we could watch last week's episode of Broadchurch, so that we would be up to date in time for that evenings next episode.

We also went for a walk to the beach, getting back just before it got dark. There were only 3 other people on the entire beach, which is just how we like it.

Tuesday.
After a lie in, we ended up in Alnwick. I know that times are tough for the high street, but it was sad to see just how many empty shops there are in the town centre there now. 

We didn't spend too long there, but had a spot of lunch in a cafe called Copperfields, which was almost as good as the previous day's. I decided against going into Barter Books, as there is nothing I really "need" right now.

Sainsbury's saw us re-stocked with supplies, and once back at the flat we watched Casino Royale on DVD. I still say it is probably the best Bond film. 

We then went for a brief walk around the village, and then settled in for the evening.  

The weather forecast for today had predicted thunderstorms, which didn't happen, and now they were saying overnight snow followed by a day of rain.

Wednesday.

No sign of the snow overnight, but it had been raining, and continued to do so for most of the rest of the day. It had always looked as though Wednesday was going to be the worst day weather wise, and was probably going to be the "staying at home day" for the week.

As we had got the supplies yesterday, it was not really necessary to go out today anyway, so it did seem like a good plan to stay in.

In the end we just chilled out indoors, I read while Sally did some crochet. We were watching the TV when the breaking news of the terror attack in London was announced on the BBC news.

We went to Beadnell Towers for dinner, which is one of the two pubs in the village. Despite how many times we have been here, we have never been to either of them before. It was quite pleasant, but like the cafe in Morpeth, would probably not win any awards.