having driven up from hadrians wall, we quickly put the tent up to reverberating thunder. we stayed at a nice campsite in budle bay. after a discussion, we also put up the porch. mostly because the weather forecast was a bit iffy, and the thunder was concerning me. a good thing too! it rained buckets that evening and even hailed. the thunder and lightening was a bit extreme! BB was actually pretty scared, and we ended up having a beans on toast supper to cheer people up before snuggling down for the night.
The next day [Monday] was gloriously sunny and we decided to spend it at the beach. Bamburgh has a fabulous long sandy beach of perfection. has sand dunes, gently slopes into the sea, there are some rock pools and it overlooks the farne islands and is overlooked by a castle. What more could you want 
oh, and yes, as I said, it was sunny . It is still the North Sea, so wetsuits for the kids on the boogie board! when we were kids we would swim and then be wrapped in towels and handed a cup of tea to warm up. Lots of pootling around on the beach, in the pools, swimming in the sea. FrB and BB ran up and down an exposed dune and then made sandcastles. SB read a book. I did some sewing, as rather behind on my kentwell sewing
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The girls were desperate for a BBQ, so that evening we had halloumi and veg kebabs and veggie sausages BBQ with choc banana for pudding. Very Nice!
tuesday was a slightly iffy weather day, so we decided to go to Alnwick castle and gardens. we really should have just done one of them, as we saw a lot of the gardens and hardly any of the castle [tho did visit the state rooms] and it is quite expensive! We started with the poison gardens, which SB [ as a stillroom apprentice] and I found fascinating, and our guide was informative. BB also found it surprisingly interesting, but FrB just found it a bit creepy, and even though we discussed the medicines bit, I think she was bemused about being told about all these plants that could kill people. I loved the beech walk and we all loved the watergarden. My favourite planting was the alliums and tulips in the meadows. It was perhaps the wrong time of year to visit a garden and look at the planting! We couldn’t resist the treehouse and had lunch in the potting shed and a race around the rope bridges.
The first couple of Harry Potters were filmed here, and there are various bits relating to that at the castle. However, we didn’t actually get to those bits before they shut – oops! but did go round the staterooms, along the curtain wall, in and out of various little museums and had a wander and thought we might need to visit again.
I wish I had known BB had flowers in her mouth!!