Side

We made a reasonably early start, this morning, walking down Dean Street and dropping off our bags at the car, and then carrying on down to a little café on Sandhill for some coffee and a croissant. My photo today is the view back up the road which apparently goes by the odd name of Side. Look at that blue sky!

And after breakfast we drove for half an hour west to visit our friends, Chris and Janice, who moved away from Kirkby Lonsdale eighteen months ago. This was around the time of that post lockdown period when we were being encouraged to 'eat out to help out' and haplessly ensuring that there would be another tsunami of the coronavirus just around the corner.

But at the time it felt like the worst was behind us and so it didn't occur to me that it would be this long before we had a chance to visit them. Anyway...

Both the house that Chris and Janice have moved to and the neighbouring town are beautiful. We had a brief tour of their new home, followed by a coffee and then a long, leisurely walk along the Tyne. It was a blissful way to work up an appetite for lunch which we had back at their house. It was a lovely few hours.

And after that, we eschewed the quickest route home and took a long drive through the North Pennines, making for a perfect finish to our day.