Out and about

Today was likely to be our only dry day, so we were determined to make the most of it!
Started the day with some tea and toast and doing a couple of crosswords- great hilarity with the words we did and didn’t know!
We saw so many little birds outside the cabin, V went out with some wet bread to feed them, and within minutes she was like the bird woman on Mary Poppins…there were 20 or so chaffinches, bluetits, bullfinches and sparrows all around her and almost eating out of her hand!
We then headed up to the Skyspace and Observatory…quite a steep walk up the hill near Kielder castle. Whilst the bit of sky that we could see through the artwork’s circular view hole was entirely covered in cloud, we liked the idea, and walking through the forest was lovely and we had some periods of sunlight slanting through the trees. So many toadstools and other fungi, and lots of self seeded trees just the right size for Christmas!
Drove round and across the dam then walked along the lakeside path towards a camera obscura. Another beautifully built stone building but a very faint effect of the waves reflected on the floor inside. Still, we enjoyed exploring it and the walk by the huge lake…at one point there were lots of towers of stacked stones by the water’s edge.
Back to the lodge for the lunch (although we’d taken it with us to have as a picnic!) so we could have a cuppa too. Afterwards we went down to the lake and walked out along the promontory, admiring the huge ancient beech trees (once again full of finches and other little birds).
When we got home we’d walked 11 miles!
We collapsed a bit then went down to the restaurant for supper and it was surprisingly good food. We shared wild garlic mushrooms on sourdough toast (after all today’s fungi it would have been rude not to!), then both had fish and chips which was huge and very delicious, then shared a raspberry soufflé. We had to stagger up the hill to the cabin, slightly annoyed that the stars we’d seen on the way out to the restaurant had all been covered by cloud so we couldn’t get the telescope out!
We watched The Bucket List, another of V’s films that she brought along, before an earlier night. Good day!