Of Northumberland and Scotland: Chapter 1. The Sheep Incident

Thanksgiving weekend 2001 was the last time P and I were on English soil together. We flew to London and took a train up to Newcastle for the wedding of our dear friends David and Jane Arthur. We had little time for sightseeing before leaving for a couple days in Paris. At the time, we vowed to return as soon as we could to see Newcastle and Northumberland.

Ten years later we finally made good on our promise.. David and Jane are the proud new parents of a thoroughly adorable baby boy (meet Master William). Last week marked his naming ceremony, along with David and Jane’s renewing their wedding vows. There was no way we were missing that, and this time we set aside a week to see the sights. It's impossible to recount it all, but I will say it was one of the best vacations we’ve ever had together. The week was a whirlwind of sights, sounds, experiences, stories, dinners, walks, drives, train rides and more memories than I can believe.

We rented an apartment by the river in Newcastle (formally, it’s known as Newcastle Upon Tyne, so that tells you which river). It was a perfect place, about 100 yards from the iconic new Gateshead Millennium Bridge, and a little further up river from the classic Tyne Bridge. Here you can see the two of them (new bridge in front, older one down river to the right) with the Sage Gateshead performing arts center in the background, on the opposite shore.

In the middle of the week we took a side trip up to Edinburgh, Scotland. We wandered around the downtown of my new favorite city, took in the magnificent Royal Mile, and also had a chance to see the rugged beauty of the Scottish highlands.

Before I get too far afield, I should tell you a story from our first full day in Northumberland. David, Jane and Master William took P and I to view three of the great castles of northeast England.  First, we saw Alnick Castle (which you know as Hogwarts from the Harry Potter movies). After that, the great Bamburgh Castle and the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle....I'll talk about those two in a later post. On the way to Bamburgh, we were driving along and noticed a meadow full of sheep, alongside the road. P asked David if the sheep ever escaped, and he said no, of course not, because they were well encircled by fences. Silly question, right?  Not so much.  Not three minutes later, with Bamburgh Castle in the distance, what do we see down the road? I'll be damned. Sheep, as far as the eye can see, and they're charging down the road toward us. A couple hundred of them.

Even the air freshener was alarmed at the sight. Jane, who was driving, had the good sense to ask the only relevant question at the moment. Not "Where the hell did they come from," but "What do I do now?" David, of course, offered the correct answer. "Stop."  That was a good plan, because before we knew it, they were getting closer.

I mentioned they were charging down the road toward us, right? Indeed they were. Notice the air freshener still can't believe what's taking place. On they came, in a big sheepy herd.

As you can plainly see, by now the air freshener is positively freaking out, and we're not entirely sure what to do, either.  In an instant, there was nothing but fuzzy sheep, rushing past the car, as fast as their spindly little sheepy legs could carry them.

In any onrushing horde of sheep rampaging through the British countryside, there is always one straggler, desperately trying to catch up.

We all sat there in the car for another few moments, too stunned at what we'd witnessed to make sense of it all. Eventually, when The Sheep Incident (as it is now forever known) had passed, we moved on to the grandeur of Bamburgh Castle and the stark, distinctly spooky malevolence of Dunstanburgh Castle's remains. 

But that will have to wait for another post.  Nothing should compete with The Sheep Incident.