Tag Archives: Alnmouth

english, Scones, Top

The Drift Café – Cresswell

We are staying in the pretty little town of Alnmouth and just round the corner there is a haunted hotel, the Schooner. If this wasn’t bad enough, we are now a few miles away beside Cresswell Tower which is also haunted. We know you have probably had enough of royal weddings but bear with us.

In this case the daughter of the Cresswell family had fallen for a handsome Danish prince. At the time, England was at war with Denmark so perhaps the happy couple should have seen the writing on the wall. Throngs of people gathered at the foot of the tower waiting for the fairy-tale wedding. The bride-to-be was waiting at the top for her prince to arrive only to witness his dead body being dragged behind a horse. The prince had been murdered by the bride’s brothers. She died of a broken heart and on occasions can still can be seen atop the tower gazing out to sea looking for her beloved. Thank goodness Meghan’s was an altogether different story.

Druridge Bay at Cresswell
Druridge Bay at Cresswell
Avocets

We however were here looking for something completely different … avocets. Neither of us had ever seen avocets before but we had it on good authority that we might be able to see them and maybe even a little egret here on Cresswell Pond, another site managed by the Northumberland Wildlife Trust. No sign of the little egret but there were at least half a dozen avocets. We were thrilled to have seen them at last. The Drift Café is quite close to the Pond so after a spell in the bird-hide we knew that a scone wasn’t far away. Internal view of The Drift Café, Cresswell

Going after crumbs

Initially you think that Cresswell is a very quiet seaside village. Not a soul to be seen. Until you enter the Drift that is … everyone’s in here! It was going like a fair! Lots of things for sale by local craft folk and a fabulous display of scones. Pat went for a cheese and chive option. It was so big she swore she would never get anywhere near finishing it. Scones at The Drift Café, CresswellShe finished it, and even went after the crumbs left on her plate. My fruit scone was great as well. Just how I like them with the added bonus of crunchy sugar bits on top … delicious.

All in all this was  definitely one of the most enjoyable experiences we have had in a long time and to make it even better, when we were leaving, across the road from the café, a stonechat … another one for the list!

Londoncentric politics

The first recording of the Cresswell name was actually in Renfrewshire in Scotland which is perhaps not too surprising given that  over 50,000 people in this part of the world have signed a petition wanting to secede from the UK and join Scotland when it becomes independent. Obviously it’s not just the Scots that are utterly fed up with Londoncentric politics. Pat’s list continues to grow.

NE61 5JX        tel: 01670 861599        The Drift Café

english, Ordinary, Scones

Sunnyhills of Belford

Every year we set off with some colleagues from the Scottish Wildlife Trust to do a bit of bird watching. It’s always fun and somewhere in Scotland is our usual destination. This year is different however because we are heading south to Englandshire, or, to be more precise, Northumberland. Pat always starts a bird list for the outing. The idea being to list each species of bird as we see them and then total them up at the end to see how many we’ve seen. Can you think of anything  more exciting?? Okay, you can but we love it! It takes us into nooks and crannies of the country we would never ever otherwise think of visiting. Just to see if we can  add another species. So it was that, before we had even crossed the border, we found ourselves at Skateraw.

Skateraw near Dunbar
Skateraw near Dunbar
Snowy owl

Intelligence had it that this was almost the only place in the  country to see yellow wagtails. Most people know the common black and white pied wagtails, well this the same but yellow. The intelligence was sound. After a bit of  searching, there it was, like a tail wagging canary. Brilliant, and a fantastic start to the list. To make things even better when we were leaving Skateraw we spied a snowy owl. Okay it was in an aviary in someone’s garden, so not strictly allowable, but hey, what a phenomenal duo to kick things off.

Eventually we crossed the border about scone o’clock so we were keeping an eye open for coffee shops as well as birds. Sunnyhills of Belford was to be our eventual stopping off place. Internal view of Sunnyhills of BelfordIt is a cafe/restaurant come farm shop with a big adventure playground area for kids … you know the sort of thing!. It was self service so it wasn’t long before we were kitted out with scones and teas. A scone at Sunnyhills of BelfordThere was  no cream and not a lot of jam but the scone itself was pleasant enough though nowhere near worthy of any kind of accolade, never mind a topscone.

On leaving Sunnyhills we headed to Alnmouth, one of Northumberland’s many beautiful villages, where we were to be based for the next few days,  It’s a piece of the country which is coastal and has many nature reserves so we were hopeful of seeing many more birds. Having said that, at the end of day one, Pat’s list had reached thirty one. Pretty amazing in itself. We will keep you posted on the final count.

Just being away for a day or so kind of throws you out of the loop in terms of news and current affairs but then there probably won’t be any for the next few days anyway with THE wedding. Oh no, don’t tell us we are going to miss it! Oh dear, what a shame, never mind. We wish the happy couple well but the fawning press and media is almost too much to bear. We’ll content ourselves looking for birds … and scones.Logo for Sunnyhills of BelfordNE70 7DP         tel: 01668 219662           Sunnyhills Farm Shop