We got home from our holiday up north on Friday and had a splendid time, in fact I suspect this trip is going to keep me blog-busy for a few days. However, here's the report on where we stayed, just to start us off.
The village of Middlestone is a few miles from Durham and consists of 20-something houses and a pub. There used to be a methodist chapel, but that has been converted to a house and that's where we were staying. So the picture above shows the chapel, on the side of the main road through the village, with my car sitting out front.
The views out the back and across the valley were astonishingly lovely and I could have happily spent some hours just sitting and looking. The picture below was taken from the picnic table in the back garden (yard) of the Chapel. 
On the other side of the main road is The Ship Inn and when we first arrived last Monday we did pop over to say hello to the locals. So here are Annie and Ed outside the pub, on a rather blustery afternoon.
On the other side of the main road is The Ship Inn and when we first arrived last Monday we did pop over to say hello to the locals. So here are Annie and Ed outside the pub, on a rather blustery afternoon.
Millie really loved the Chapel and the garden. Next door there were some dogs who lived outside (in a kennel) during the day and on the other side the field had horses in. Now there's nothing a terrier likes more than other creatures to keep organised, so she was content running and barking as much as we humans could tolerate. On the last day we gave her a rawhide shoe toy (in a feeble attempt to cut noise levels) and she went straight off to bury it in the garden, so we knew it was a good gift. Here's the excavation in progress when I went out later to "rescue" it.
Then she took it from me and went off to find a more secure place to bury it ...
On the way there last Monday we took a side trip to visit the village of Norton, near Stockton, where part of my family comes from. Alongside the little row of houses where my mother's father was born in 1902 I spotted this lovely poppy, and you know I'm a sucker for a flower picture, so here it is. Now I'm off to upload the family history pictures from Norton to Flickr, for the rest of the family to see. More anon ...
