Monday, August 25, 2003

Greetings from Weardale.

This morning starts off foggy and still. If it is anything like the past couple of days this will burn off soon and it will be fairly sunny and warm. For Weardale, that is.

Saturday was Joan's last day before returning to home so we went out and played a bit. Took a morning walk through Slitt Wood and up Middlehope Burn past numerous waterfalls and old mine site ruins. Caused great consternation among some sheep who's grazing we so rudely interrupted but otherwise mostly had the walk to ourselves. Today's photo is the view from the top of the burn looking back at the wood and numerous old mine dumps, now overgrown.

After having lunch up in Allendale at the King's Head we went over to Alston and wandered around a bit. Alston is a scenic old mining town with a steep cobbled street running through the old town center. There's a nice antiques shop and a rambling old book store that you can spend hours in looking at things such as 1960's Beatles fan magazines and Victorian era books on lady's etiquette. As with many towns like this, tourism is now a major source of income. As a result, the place is also populated with shops selling cute little fairy figurines and other kitsch. There was one nice pottery shop featuring local artists, however. We ended the day at a pub called the Manor House, a little north of the dale. The place is particularly noted for their food and we had a really nice selection of local cheeses, a couple pints, and watched the sun set over the moors.

Cal took a trip to a mineral show in Harrogate, near York. He reports that as far as mineral shows go, there weren't a whole lot of great minerals in evidence, but it was well attended by many of the local mineral community and was a good opportunity to socialize. Jonina and Sarah continued to process tubs of wrapped specimens here at the cottage, Kerith spent the day in front of the VCR with her foot up, and Byron (of course) went to the mine for some collecting.

Sunday I spent most of the day on the M1 motorway delivering Joan to Heathrow airport for her flight back. Not the most exciting thing to do in these parts but as it was Sunday the traffic was mercifully light. Upon returning I found the cottage wide open, lights on, but seemingly devoid of anyone. After wondering if I had stepped onto the set of some bad 1950's SciFi movie, I finally found Byron taking a bit of a rest. Cal and Jonina were making a trip to Kendal and not back yet so we went down to the Golden Lion where we watched some young lass thoroughly whip her boyfriend at the pool table. Byron was sure that she purposely blew a couple of shots so as not to make it look too bad for the poor lad.

We finally caught up with Cal and Kerith at the Mill Race and had dinner. They are staying there this weekend as Kerith cannot yet travel and they had only booked their rental cottage through last week. They will be joining us today here at the Mine House as there are no stairs, which are difficult for Kerith to manage. She will be going back for a check-up later in the week and hopefully will get a lighter cast on her ankle and be able to travel home.

This is the last week here for us so we are now in close-down mode. We are planning on shipping out the fluorite on Wednesday, but despite placing the order some time ago have not yet received our final order of plastic shipping bins from the supplier. This being a bank holiday weekend means that the soonest we can expect delivery is now Tuesday. If this doesn't happen, I suspect Jonina will have more than a few choice words with the vendor.

Stay tuned for more…

Cheers,

Jesse & the crew.

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