After being woken gently by the early morning sun shining through the window I found myself feeling bright and breezy at 7am. Sneaking downstairs to let the dogs out, I put the kettle on and made a start on breakfast for Emily and I. Since we were only dog-sitting at my friend's beautiful farmhouse for the weekend, we had a lot of exploring to do and it was time to crack on!
The pretty village of Warkworth is only a short drive from where we were staying, and since Emily the Southerner had never been, off we went in my canny car Little Blue in search of an adventure...
The backdrop of Warkworth is dominated by the medieval ruins of Warkworth Castle. The castle was once home to the Duke of Northumberland and members of the upstanding Percy family who now call its not-so-distant neighbour Alnwick Castle home.
After crossing the mighty threshold and into the ancient ruins, Emily and I set off to explore.
Delving deeper into the ruins, we tried to picture what the towers, turrets, chapels and great halls would have looked like.
As a self-confessed medieval history geek, my time spent devouring Philippa Gregory's Tudor tales and watching umpteen David Starkey documentaries meant I conjured up images of great feasts by the fire, intimate ceremonies in the chapel and the hustle and bustle of servants clambering up and down to the beer cellar pretty easily, and it wasn't long before we had made up our own imaginary family whose trials and tribulations took place under cover of these old stone walls.
Emily waiting for a long lost love to arrive on horseback over the grassy verge...
While I kept an eye out for armies on the march to invade our land....
The view of rural old Northumberland wasn't half bad either.
After all that exploring it was definitely time to head into Warkworth and show Emily the cute collection of shops, starting of course, with my favourite: Cabosse Coffee Shop and Patisserie.
WARNING: Anyone on a diet should look probably away now....
There's nothing I love more than chocolate, so when I spied the chocolate fondue set, I obviously had to try it. Ladies and Gentlemen feast your eyes on a pot of melted Cabosse milk chocolate, sugar curls, chopped hazelnuts, fresh banana and cream all served on a silver platter for you to tuck in. I think you can probably tell from the picture how amazing it was, and best of all it's only £6.95!
After lunch we wandered along the gently sloping streets, popping our heads in and out of the lovely little gift shops. Two places you absolutely must visit are Gray's of Warkworth - a girlie gift shop filled with pretty scarves, jewellery and handbags, and Fenwick Gallery and Gift Shop which sells the work of local artists, craftspeople and jewellery designers. Emily and I fell in love with just about everything.
All too quickly it was time to say goodbye to our farmhouse and head back to Newcastle ready for work in the morning. Let's hope it won't be too long before I'm back in my spiritual home!
I'm exactly the same, on holiday I'm up and about with the birds wanting to explore, my boyfriend doesn't quite get that, he thinks when you're on holiday it's wrong to now lounge in bed and have a lie in (luckily I usually win!)
ReplyDeleteWarkworth is on my list, it looks beautiful! I also need to get myself to the coffee shop! x