A whirlwind tour

crossing bridges - the new bridge over the Forth

We're back after a swift run around all parts of the British Isles - down through Ireland to Rosslare, ferry to Fishguard and across the south of Wales, over into England to north London, up the eastern side of the country and into Scotland and back home to the North of Ireland ... phew..   A lot of miles, 4 wonderful concerts, a radio session, catch ups with lots of friends, and a visit to Barter Books (Yaaayy,, Tom had to drag me out).   AS the name suggests, it's a secondhand book shop, one of the largest in England and probably one of the largest in the world, and you can bring in books to barter.

These aren't the best pictures as I only had my phone with me and not a lot of time to spare, 

plus there was the more important task of buying books and some souvenirs for our Book Corner. 

It really is a splendid place.   It was on Kezzie's blog that I first heard about it, and I've been trying to engineer a journey to drive past Alnwick ever since - and managed to bring a bag of books with me to barter.

It's a haven for second hand books and particularly for collectors - there's some amazing antiquarian sections among the more common-or-garden books. 

But the highlight for me were the lines of poetry on every free surface.  That and the train which I didn't manage to capture.  It runs in front of this mural of famous writers of which I now have several photos in an attempt to catch one of the wee trains running on that track in front of it  (note to self..you really need some photo lessons) - the book shop is in an old railway station that was on a line only used by Queen Victoria I think on visits to some local lord - I'm a bit scant on historical fact and no time to check this morning.

We're two very tired bods and it'll take a few days to catch up with ourselves, but we're hitting the ground running and today I start a new singing workshop for people with lung conditions in association with the British Lung Foundation.  Hopefully a few people will turn up as I'm very much looking forward to this project which will run for a few months if there are enough participants.

Better dash - I'm looking forward to catching up with all the Scavenger hunt photo blogs over the weekend and also looking back at the other positive news stories too from the We Are The World bloghop.

Talk soon.