Hexham Abbey

I'm having a day out today. I deserve it, it's my birthday!

We are in Hexham because The B-I-L had a hospital appointment. Right, we'll make a day of it with a birthday lunch in a nice restaurant! Wrong! The chosen restaurant was closed on Tuesday lunchtimes. On the journey my friend had been raving about lunches in the Abbey. We'd eat there instead. Wrong! It was full.

Finally we settled for Wetherspoons. We know what their menu is like, always something you can eat and always a spare table.

We arrived at the hospital well before time and after a cup of coffee, The B-I-L went across and announced his presence.. The hospital seemed quiet and he was out before he should have been in!

A visit to Hexham hospital is not complete without a shot of Yang (Extras). He isn't a stray, he has a home to go to every night but he chooses to spend every day at the door of the hospital. You have to queue up to stroke him on the way in and out. He doesn't care for this attention, he doesn't purr, he doesn't respond. He merely tolerates it.

This evening, to save me cooking we went out to our local pub, The Boot and Shoe. I had a really nice Mushroom Wellington. After our meal we had a long chat with the man who is going to restore our castle and make it into a café and restaurant. We thanked him for the lovely evening he invited the villagers to before Christmas.

Something else that made the day good, a lady whose dog I had photographed, printed and framed as a surprise Christmas present from her parents, phoned me to say how much she absolutely LOVED the way I'd captured his personality. I'd printed the border terrier on PermaJet's Titanium Lustre to bring out the wiriness which is characteristic of the breed. That made me very happy.

Now, as I type this, I'm enjoying a Baileys at the end of a lovely day.