While Megan tries to convince Harry that she hadn’t really wanted a big wedding, we are still a safe distance away in the north east of England.  The Hauxley Wildlife Discovery Centre near Druridge Bay  is internationally renowned for its birds. It’s amazing because it was once a very industrial open-cast mining site. In 1983, however, it was taken over by Northumberland Wildlife Trust and transformed into this fabulous haven for wildlife. They’ve done a magnificent job with an extensive shallow pond surrounded by great paths and multiple hides. Definitely one of the best reserves we have come across.

We spent a couple of hours visiting the hides, spying on the host of birds and butterflies that have made this their home. Pat was happy to add a few new species, like blackcap and whitethroat to her list. Once we had done a fairly lengthy circuit of all the hides it was scone o’clock and time to return to the reception centre.

Last minute scones

Even this large straw-bale built reception centre was put together by a small army of Northumberland Wildlife Trust volunteers. The café not only had scones but huge viewing windows where you could eat your scone while continuing to watch birds. What more could you ask for?The self-service service was very warm and friendly as you would expect in this part of the world. There wasn’t any cream and not much jam but the scones themselves were very good and very welcome. Our group actually bought all the scones they had. If we had been a few minutes later there would have been none and that would have been a disaster. No topscone here unfortunately but a very good effort in a quite magical place … keep up the good work!

Talking of disasters … let’s return to the wedding. Seriously, you have probably gathered by now that we are not great fans of Royalty but we do like Suits, so we really do wish the new Countess of Dumbarton (yes, that’s one of Megan’s many titles now) and her hubby every good fortune with their marriage.

Who cares when there is a Royal wedding?

It was great to see that all the homeless people had been either removed from Windsor or covered up with Union flags. All the towns potholes had also been repaired. Can all UK towns have a Royal wedding, please? Elsewhere there were plane crashes in Cuba, another mass school shooting in the Texas, the start of Ramadan and the opening of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland where they will be discussing whether the C of S has 10 or 20 years left to live. But who cares when there is a Royal wedding? Not to worry the bird-list continues to grow.