Tulip Cottage

It was very much a case of lastminute.com!  Not the booking of this cottage, but my organising all the associated packing and sorting pertinent to a holiday.  We were up until midnight last night and then I was awake at six this morning.  As I suspected, I was starting with a virus, not a great prospect at the start of a holiday.  Thankfully our homeopath came up with a remedy which I took hourly for three doses and then staggered throughout the day.  I am not fully fit but my symptoms are bearable, thank God!

The journey went well and we broke our journey at a half way point for a coffee and loo stop at Tesco in Hexham.  We had thought to make a stop at the Abbey but since we were later than planned leaving home, it made sense to keep our visit short.  We were also able to pick up some much needed fresh groceries to supplement the dried goods brought from home.

We haven't however been without some interesting moments during the course of the day:

We hadn't got far from home and upon entering the lane designated for the motorway junction, an ambulance needed access into our lane, no other cars were moving and I did my best to pull to one side.  Upon arriving into our destination of Rothbury, I for some reason looked down at the front bumper on the car and it has a multiple scratches all along the passenger side :-(

I was really struggling to drive and at one point narrowly missed hitting a crash barrier at the side of the road ~ time for Dave to take over.  

The heat is affecting Dave and the MS symptoms and driving has been painful for me due to a trapped nerve in my back, ouch!

Once again the car parking space for the cottage is no where near the cottage!!  It was very interesting ferrying all our stuff into the house :-)

We found a mobile phone on the bench in the courtyard and so have left a text message with the cottage owner to let them know.  It turns out that the phone actually belongs to the cleaner!  As I was messaging the owner, her number came up on the lost phone!!

I dropped a bottle of wine as I was extracating myself from the passenger seat of the car!  Dave rang the co-operative shop where the item was bought and they will replace it free of charge :-)

Despite these tiny hiccups, we have all settled in nicely and were seranaded whilst eating our tea in the courtyard:

 On the front gate.

 The courtyard.

 The basement games room!

 Pool and table football.

Utility room off the games room ... luxury!

 Downstairs bedroom going begging, who's coming to stay?!!

Downtairs family bathroom.

 Family lounge and dining room.

 Kitchen off the lounge, left hand side.

 

 Middle.

Right hand side ~ look at all those cupboards!

  The crockery even has room too, no trawling into the dining room for items!  This kitchen is not much bigger than ours at home, but since it doesn't have a back door to accomodate, that is where the extra space is gained.

 Our bedroom.

 Cute en-suite bathroom which is not much smaller than our family bathroom at home!

View from our bedroom window.

The kids bedroom is a good size and accomates a bunk bed (which is a double on the bottom and a single on top) and a single on the opposite side of the room. The kids love it!

Well I had better close as I need to work out what we are going to do tomorrow.  Dave is having fun actually watching TV!  The Beatles, "It's a hard days night!"  Re- living his youth interests!

Night, night xx