Friday 23 August

We put a donation in Owen's charity jar for breast cancer research and to say "thank you" as Owen has offered to drop us at Wylam train station, which is next to the River Tyne, and a short ride to the main station in Newcastle. Wylam's claim to fame is as the birth place of George Stephenson, and there was a small National Trust museum to prove it (now closed evidently). George was a Victorian civil and mechanical engineer, who is best known for the construction of the Locomotion No. 1 steam engine with his son Robert.

Unfortunately we are 3 minutes late for the 9.18am train and the 9.33am does not stop at Wylam. Owen didn't have his train times quite right. We still had a card from the local taxi company though, so easily fixed, and £21 later we are in Newcastle.

We had hoped to have time to dump our bags and take a Metro train down to Wallsend and the Segedunum Roman Museum at the official end of Hadrian's Wall. Could have bought our "We Walked Hadrian's Wall" souvenir T-shirts too! But we decided against it due to time constraints and the fact that the nearest luggage facility was not in the station.

The coming weekend is a public holiday in England and Wales, it's the August Bank Holiday, the last day off until Christmas. The local inhabitants go slightly tropo it seems and Simon & Louise avoid long drives due to clogged roads. London & North East Railways have decided to close the rail lines into King's Cross over the weekend for maintenance. So good job we opted for a slightly higher cost ticket to go First Class with a seat reservation as LNER are predicting congested trains on the day before the closure.

We wait in the First Class lounge with free coffee, water etc. and our train leaves on time. Nice seats, space for the luggage, hot lunch with wine or beer - all good. The train arrives in Kings Cross a few minutes late so we are on the clock to get across to St Pancras station next door and find the right platform for our St. Albans City station train. Busy, busy place, but we make it on to the 15.33 train and in less than half an hour we arrive to be met by Tony's sister Louise and brother-in-law Simon. Amazingly, all the luggage fits in the car and we have a short ride to their home.

Saturday 24 to Monday 26 August

A few days off with Louise & Simon. We enjoy breakfast in the back garden with the birds and squirrels, a very peaceful way to start the day. Later we walk into St. Albans for coffee on a market day. Very busy but we find a table in one of Louise's regular haunts and meet one of her friends there. Then a short walk around to a couple of favourite photographic locations to immortalise our visit. Tony had a bit of foot soreness, probably as a result of our 95km trek so we headed to Argos to pick up a replacement travel clock (lost on the trip) and camera (stuffed after many years of hard use) for Kathy, and then home.

On Sunday our trip out was to the cinema to watch "Angel Has Fallen." The latest in this action adventure franchise. Lots of action from some rather aging heroes. Monday saw three of us drive over to Stockwell Park, which is located at the southern end of Luton. It became a park in the ownership of Luton Council in 1945. Before that, from 1708, it was the estate of the Crawley family with Stockwood House at its heart. The Crawley family vacated the house and estate in 1939 and the house was demolished in 1964. Lovely park and gardens, plus Carriage Museum which permitted some photographic moments.

Thanks to Louise & Simon for the beds and all the meals we enjoyed.