Second Sunday

I’m going to show off a bit before I continue with my holiday blog and show you this pic of our first harvest from the garden. I hope it makes your mouth water, because it certainly did mine when my OH brought them into the kitchen!! And the taste was to die for.

Post 3 of the delayed holiday postings.

On Sunday we paid a visit to Hadrian’s wall. For those who don’t know it as well as we do in the UK, it was built by the Romans in about AD 122 at the time of their occupation of Britain, to keep out the invaders from the North. The place we chose to go was called Housesteads Fort, which is owned by the NT, and is the best preserved Roman Fort in Europe.

Needless to say the fort is situated on top of a hill and on the day we went the wind was howling, making it feel like the bleakest site on earth.





This pic shows the way they put in pillars under the floor of the grain store to create ventilation to stop the grain from getting damp. I thought it was for the under floor heating, but that was only used in the fort Commander’s extremely large courtyard house.

The most interesting thing I saw were the latrines complete with washing bowls in tact and then this account of how the sanitation worked. Quite ingenious I thought!! But for those of a delicate nature you may want to move on down the page past the NT explanation!





We also visited another NT site that day (we do like to get our money’s worth out of the membership), and this was a lovely river walk called the Allen Banks and Steward Gorge.






The Summer House

One of the things I found was this brilliant idea for an out door book, giving the history of the site, in the Summer House. It certainly gave me food for thought for a different approach to bookmaking.





As we walked through a more open part of the woodland my OH pointed out these beautiful wild pansies, they’re much smaller than the domestic variety, but exquisite in close up. I even had time to have a go at sketching the shape and record the correct colour, as I knew the camera would have trouble with the purple, that was till rain stopped play and I realised that I had a wet backside from sitting on the grass.



About half way along the walk I notice this suspension bridge and although we didn’t have to cross it, I had to have a go. It did feel pretty unnerving at first but once I realised it was safe I actually decided to take a pic of the river, not bad for a vertigo sufferer!!