The Northumberland Coast: Alnmouth and Alnwick

Grounded by an ongoing contagion and with an 8-week summer holiday looming, the prospect of continuing to look at the same four walls felt quite bleak. The city was 'opening up' again but that reality was far more sobering than it sounded--restrictions, social distancing, reduced numbers. 

Enter Dawn, my friend turned planner extraordinaire. As opposed to the wallowing I was doing, she turned her hand to researching in-country countryside adventures. Shortly thereafter we were in possession of a two-room sausage dog friendly cottage with a garden, train tickets and a grocery delivery straight to the front door. 

The ensuing adventure did not disappoint. We rocked up to King's Cross Station to hop a nearly-empty train northward up to the town of Alnmouth, a picturesque seaside village on the Northumberland coast.

Northumberland is a bit of a hidden gem--the region bumps up against the Scottish border on the East side of the country. If you've ever taken the train up to Edinburgh and whooshed past stunning white sand beaches and golf courses, you've seen this beautiful part of the world already. 

Our cottage was nothing fancy. Just a short walk up a hill from the train station, it had a garden for Frank, a teeny galley kitchen and the Most Stunning view of the hills on one side and the sea on the other. I cannot explain the feeling of a long-distance seaside view after months locked up in London. I was giddy and stunned and, if only briefly, completely, perfectly happy. 

Dawn, Frank and I took to our surroundings, using the local bus network to our advantage. We seemed to be the only ones who did; the bus was practically empty--everyone took social distancing to new levels in this seaside haven. 

On our first day, we familiarised ourselves with the Almouth environs, taking an 8km loop from our cottage to the tiny little town 'centre' and beach. We were delighted.

Alnmouth Beach

Countryside Walk 

Somewhere mid-walk we stumbled upon the budding project of the Aln Valley railway, a steam train revival that had been paused due to Covid. 

The pubs around town were in various stages of open. Some only served people outside under elaborate tents and umbrellas, others were completely closed. Regardless, they all had that charm that most London pubs lack.

We managed to circle ourselves back to the outer edges of Alnmouth Beach late in the afternoon. Frank was living his absolute best life. 

But so was I.

Alnwick 

The town of Alnwick (pronounced Annick because, England) was a short bus ride away. It's the largest 'town' in southern Northumberland and home to a few gems of Britishness. Barter Books, England's largest used book store, lies on the outskirts of town occupying the old Alnwick Rail Station hall. The train stopped running there in 1968 due to changing travel fashions. 

The bookstore uses the space well: 

You can even sit in the old station room for coffee, cake and a seat next to the fireplace. 

A 5-minute walk from there takes you into Alnwick proper. The town centre has some serious Edinburgh vibes. The stones, architecture and scenery all mimic its neighbour to the north. It's a cute place to whittle away a few hours--here you can find cafes, cutes boutiques and cake slices the size of your head. 

And just around the corner from town centre, majestic Alnwick Castle sits nestled between river and hills. Look closely, this should be familiar. 

The castle was closed for visitors due to Covid but that didn't stop people from wearing their Harry Potter scarves, waving their Harry Potter wands and stopping by shops selling butter beer. It transpires that the castle has been a prime filming location for the first two Harry Potter films, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Downton Abbey, to name a few. 

From every angle, it was pretty impressive. 

And so. We hopped back on a bus to our little cottage in order to cook dinner, drink wine and watch bad TV. Living the post-lockdown-but-still-covid dream. 

Covid Chronicles: July

Today is the 13th of July and lockdown in London has started to lift. Bubbles have expanded and then expanded again, overnight stays in England, Wales and Scotland are now possible. The 'shielding' vulnerable people will bet let out of their virtual barred houses on the first of August. And still, people are dying of Covid in significant numbers whilst the politicians dither on in their vague linguistic terms about whether or not masks indoors should be mandatory. This pales in comparison to the madness happening in my home country. I despair for my friends and family and for the passport that, currently, only allows me into 24 other countries. Not that I blame those other countries barring entry to Americans...

I say none of this to bring down the mood, it's a mere historical observation for my hopefully future self looking back on these days. On the upside, there have been copious Frank snuggles, long walks with Paul and lots of time to work my way through my jigsaw puzzle collection.

There have been significant moments masked in mundane everyday tasks:

• 4 June: Stepped foot inside school to pick up some supplies and have a socially distant lunch on a park bench with a friend
• 26 June: Finished year 13 of teaching
• 26 June: Rode the tube for the first time since mid-March to meet friends in Regents Park for a two metres of social distance between individuals, end of school year hurrah
• 10 July: Had my first socially distant meal in a pub garden with a friend
• Two weeks into summer holidays, I haven't gone insane or made Paul crazy yet. I've channeled my inner sanity by blogging. Summer 2019 in Greece and Italy is now done.

More is in the pipeline. The odds are looking that we'll likely be going back to school full-time in August. I'm taking tiny steps to prepare myself for full societal integration, like some kind of ex-prisoner.

Part of that plan involves domestic summer travel. And although Northumberland isn't nearly as warm and sunny as Southern Italy, it's still travel. So watch this space.

London in Lockdown

Rumour has it, the city is going to start reopening on the 15th of June. This means that non-essential retail shops (but not pubs, restaurants or hair salons) will start opening their doors once again. Whether the city and country are ready for this is a different matter entirely. My friends in China and across Asia are starting to resume business as somewhat usual--track and trace is in place as is compulsory mask wearing. The UK is nowhere near that. We're far too 'individual' for measures that would protect the common good. And so we will be here, in this no man's land of virus, for the foreseeable. 

As sod's law dictates, I can't remember a sunnier several weeks in London. We've had maybe one day of rain and 50 days of blue, blue skies and warm weather. What better time to hoof it over to Covent Garden and back?

On our Saturday walk, we were greeted with quiet streets just about everywhere. There were some people out. But some was not many and with shops still very much closed, people didn't mill about. 

Exmouth Market

 

Holborn 
Signs to remain two metres apart have become ubiquitous throughout the city. Tape lines spaced 2 metres apart scale the perimeter of grocery stores, corner shops and cafes that remain open.

 

Covent Garden
At the weekend, Covent Garden is usually teeming with street performers and slow walking tourists. We normally avoid it, pardon the pun, like the plague. Yesterday, we were greeted with a much serener scene. Actually, post-apocalyptic comes to mind; the entire centre was bereft of people.

 

 

Leicester Square
Leicester Square was even creepier. We actually didn't recognise it without the masses of people queueing to get tickets for the cinema, lounging in the square or um-ing and aw-ing about whether a third visit to M&M world was feasible. 

 

Had we turned left to Trafalgar Square instead of right into Chinatown, we would have been greeted with a more normal London scene. Thousands of protestors took to the streets for the first in a series of Black Lives Matter protests, another event added to the history of 2020. I'd like to hope we'll look back on this year in the future and see it as a major turning point against institutional racism, both in the UK and USA. But the news out of the US continues to terrify me. How do you fight large-scale complicity?

Chinatown
A short shuffle away, Chinatown's lanterns stood out in stark contrast to the empty. Some restaurants recently started opening to takeaway and so it was one of the slightly busier parts of the city.

 Soho
 Chinatown's 'busy' only made Soho's empty all the more stark. It was a little heartbreaking to see the normally bustling streets completely empty, cafes and restaurants largely shut up. The men of G-A-Y stood out front, dressed in drag, peddling smoothies on their smoothie bike. But that was about it. Iconic Bar Italia shut. Delightful Balans Cafe shut.

 Ormond Street
And so we made our way back to North London via the backstreets of Holborn. The blue skies were backdrop to the widespread green. We had moved from early spring to summer in the blink of a lockdown.

And despite the fear and tragedy of current events, we appreciated a moment to see London as we may never experience it again. From tiny backstreets to major thoroughfares, this city is a beautiful one.

Stasis is the New Travel

There are four main rooms, a toilet and a bathroom in my flat. The roof terrace is approximately 4 meters by 2.5 meters. I know this because in the last 11 weeks of London quarantine, I've paced every centimetre of space from door to door. Frank takes a more leisurely approach, following the daily passage of the sun by stretching out over one sun-splattered surface to another.

In some ways, my unconscious mind saw the future coming. On new year's day, after a dairy-induced GERD attack and making my way to the wrong Chicago airport, I joked of my hope that the year/decade hadn't started as it meant to continue. Clairvoyance is not a gift of mine so I chalk my comments up to cruel irony. I wish the phrase 'flatten the curve' had not become so ubiquitous, that governments hadn't put profit over people so overtly and that I didn't have to become an overnight Zoom and Google Meet tech expert. But here we are in 2020 and the universe had other plans.

The first two months of the new decade, although 'rona free, were not without their challenges. Paul had his second transplant. One of his close friends died suddenly. I jumped through ridiculous hoops to take an intense trip to Tanzania with 34-students whilst continuing being a teacher in school with a very demanding parent clientele. Some lovely friends from the past came to visit. Coronavirus would later interrupt more from visiting. But I didn't know that yet.

The impending freight train came slowly, almost blindly to London. Clearly, it took the leaders of the British government by surprise as well. I remember laughing at a friend who predicted school closures in mid-feb. I laughed off the videos of people stockpiling toilet paper. I continued to buy a single pack of pasta during my regular shopping trip.

But parents started pulling their kids out of school. The streets of Central London got a bit quieter. My hands started cracking from the combination of hand washing and extraneous hand sanitiser use. Finally, Paul received a letter through the door highlighting his 'very vulnerable' status with the instructions to shield at home for 12-weeks. No going out, no further guidance. Impossible advice to follow considering his weekly hospital appointments.

My school building closed four days before Boris declared them shut. Our last day of 'normal' lessons was punctuated by a weird frenzy of 'when will we be back?' Even then, I didn't think. My unwashed travel mug remains on my desk at school, presumably in the advanced stages of science project experiment.

My last ride on public transport, a three-stop journey by tube to work, took place the morning of the 16th of March. I dropped into a grocery store for the last time the next day, to buy eggs for a birthday cake for Paul. And I bid an unknowing farewell to my boxing gym the week before, on the 10th.

Eleven weeks later, I am happy to report little (and some quite significant) victories:

• We've both remained, touch wood, corona-free.
• We're both still working from home and getting paid (a major feat considering the economy and shenanigans across the pond).
• Last week we finally managed to obtain an online grocery delivery slot. It only took 10 weeks...
• Online yoga and barre have been a lifeline. My sanity might be gone but my thighs are rock hard.
• My spinning studio has finally decided to rent out their bikes. Mine arrives this week.
• My knowledge of the neighbourhoods within a 3-mile walking radius of our flat is impeccable. I could pass The Knowledge, the infamous London cabby geography exam.

London remains somewhat beautiful in its random states of emptiness:

 

 St Pancras on a Sunday afternoon:

And I'm starting to get cozy in the uncomfortable idea that Summer 2020 will involve zero travel. I'm officially over the denial and anger phases and currently sit somewhere between depression and acceptance. It may take some time.

Summer travel is therefore likely to be of the virtual variety this year. So in an attempt to find the silver lining in this cumulonimbus nightmare, I'll be going back to those not-yet-blogged parts of summer 2019 and 2018 (eek). So I'll be taking you, via armchair, to Italy, Greece, South Africa, Mexico, in no particular order. I usually backdate these experiences to around the date they happened but I might switch that up this year. Watch this space.

And cross your fingers that the economists' viewpoint that the 'golden age of travel has ended' are wrong. I accept the need for smarter, greener, less environmentally impacting travel. But this cannot be the end. I'm not ready for that.

Northern Tanzania

Without going into significant details that would incriminate the Machiavellian capitalist machine that disguises itself as a group running schools, I will boil down the planning and paperwork madness of preparing for the school's 2020 Tanzania trip into one word: clusterfuck.

Suffice it to say, by the time the team of five teachers wrangled 34 16-year-old students onto the first of two flights, I was already spent. Fortunately I enlisted the support of great staff and we carried each other through the ten-days. My stress only manifested itself physically in the last day when I woke up unable to open my left eye. Cue crazy weird allergy/infection that cleared up the day after a proper night sleep in my own bed in London.

Volunteering

On the ground, our team of nearly 40 quickly ramped up into work mode. We were staying in a new accommodation walking distance to a new school that had received less international support than our previous location. The headteacher, a fierce woman in her 50s, greeted us and then immediately outlined all the work they needed doing. 

And so we got to the task of: breaking cement, mixing cement, moving cement, laying cement. And then: 'dusting' dirt floors in preparation for cement, a task that left you sneezing grey for three days; sanding and varnishing desks; preparing walls for painting, which often involved chasing large spiders out windows; painting walls; painting murals; moving 100kg bags of grain into the school's brand new silo. 

Unlike last year, there was a lot of work for everyone all the time. Our average day saw us at school from 9am until 5:30-6pm. And the kids were freaking fantastic. My school has a strict policy on photo permissions so no photos here. 

Excursions

In between the exhaustion of physical labour, we took the kids on the same excursions as the year before: to Materuni Waterfall, the 'Coca-Cola route' up Kilimanjaro, and on safari to the Ngorongoro Crater. 

Materuni Waterfall

Our trip to Materuni was made particularly special by the fact that we weren't allowed to swim this year. Protocol dictated students could enter the water up to their knees, not up to their waists, the height of the pool the year before. In the end, it turns out none of that mattered. Weeks of unseasonable rain meant that we were met with a roaring rapid of a waterfall and pool, no the trickle of years past. As far as 200 metres away from the entrance to the pool, we were already hit with the spray of the waterfall. The kids stayed well enough away. 

Kilimanjaro Trek 

Our day trek to Kilimanjaro was a bit more by the book. As per usual, some of the kids dreaded the hike up the mountain. We were only going up the Mandara Hut route, a climb to 2700m (we were already at 1870m so not ridiculous). The route looks like your typical forest with no real lookout points or views--you're too far down the mountain for that.

                                            

I stuck to the back with a group of three students who'd accidentally huffed paint fumes the day before. It really was accidental and after it stopped being scary, and we ascertained the students were going to be just fine, we all had a good laugh. 

But I won't bore you with those details.

By the time we got to Mandara Hut, so had the rain. So we sat in the covered picnic spot, ate and turned on a dime to make it out of the park before the 5pm exit cutoff time. I thoroughly enjoyed the 35k step walk through the woods and the bus ride home was silent, which I also enjoyed. 

Safari 

Rightly so, the event that everyone was looking forward to was our safari to Ngorongoro Crater. This involved a very long drive through Arusha and then up through safari land. Our driver gave us a good tour as we passed through Mosquito Valley (home to an alarming number of malaria cases) and got to watch sunset over the land of Tarangire National Park. Watching the passing scenery gave further context to a country and its people. 

We arrived at Haven Nature Lodge, in dwindling twilight, making time for a quick dinner and even quicker sleep before the 4:30am start. 

Once in the crater, a sense of surrealism takes over. Is this the same planet I live on? Are those animals real? I talk more about the geography of this particular location in last year's post so I won't repeat it here. But, honestly, you still have to convince yourself that this place is real. 

Over the course of the day, we'd see four of the big five (still no leopard) and get stuck in the mud and have to be towed by a tractor out.

None of that mattered though. We were on safari. 

And thus ended the glorious excursions of the 2020 Tanzania trip. We headed back for a final morning of work and thank yous at our local primary school, something I missed out due to the ridiculous swollen shut eye. The kids came back with full hearts, grateful to experience life on a different part of the planet. My concerns about the sustainability of volunteer trips remain but my paperwork and fights focused on the notion that, with our trip, we're doing the best we can to be local, sustainable and ethical. The debate, however, rages on.