Around Easter Alyson & I went through the annual round of trying to decide what to buy each other for our upcoming birthdays. Perhaps it was the experience of clearing mum & dad’s house prior to selling it, which we had been doing for the previous 3 years; or maybe looking at the amount of ‘stuff’ we have accumulated in over 35 years of being together, but Alyson declared she didn’t want anything material. She had realised there is beauty all around in the natural world, and that the pressure of work and family means that free time is more precious than so-called ‘valuables’. Freedom to look around at the beauty in nature, or to sit and watch a glorious sunset, is priceless, with memories last much longer than material possessions.
Alyson has never had any interest in expensive jewellery or clothes, and can’t believe that anyone would even consider paying hundreds of pounds for a handbag. Sure we live in a large family home & have nice things; lots of ornaments, collectables, books and electronic gadgets. These things have a tendency to gather dust or become ‘unusable’ due to being superseded by the latest model. We are fortunate to have some savings and good pension arrangements, so holidays & travel are regularly on our agenda.
With these thoughts Alyson declared that this year she had three wishes.
- To sleep in a windmill
- To see a puffin.
- To see a kingfisher
The windmill has been on the list for quite a few years, as every time we pass one Alyson declares a curiosity about what it would be like to stay in a dwelling with round rooms.
At Easter we were on our annual family weekend at a cottage near Bamburgh in Northumberland & Alyson took a particular interest in the sea birds, guided by ‘big Pete’, who volunteers at a nature reserve near his home. This led to the last two wishes.
As is the modern way I put ‘staying at a windmill’ into my search engine and one of the results that came up was The Windmill Hotel in Scarborough. Now, I have been visiting the Yorkshire seaside resort for over 50 years so dismissed this as ‘just a hotel’ with the name, perhaps because it was on the site of a former building. But no, it was somewhere that had rooms but with a couple of them in an actual windmill. I chose the apartment on the top two floors. The bedroom with en-suite on the lower floor and kitchen/living room above. It also had sails and a balcony which went the full 360 degrees. The stay was booked for the end of June.
Before then we made a return visit to Northumberland in May when the boat trips to the Farne Islands were running, we could land on one and get close to the nesting birds. Our first attempt was foiled not by bad weather but swelling seas. Our boat left Seahouses with a promise of landing on one of the islands manned by National Trust Rangers. The vessel Glad Tidings V was packed full of 60 people who seemed to be aged 55+ and from a coach party. We saw lots of birds nesting on the rock stacks and the largest of the 20+ islands, Inner Farne. We also saw grey seals bobbing around the boat looking at us with great interest. There were plenty of birds in the air; guillemots, razorbills, cormorants, shags and some puffins with their distinctive rapid-flapping flight, and a flash of orange bill. However, despite watching the boat ahead of us almost landing successfully, when it came to our turn the swell was too high to get us safely on and off the jetty. We made do with a tour round the other islands. Arctic tern pecked away at the ranger’s hat on Inner Farne as he came between the birds and their young. There were plenty of eider ducks or ”Cuddy’s ducks” as they are known locally, after St Cuthbert who set up a monastery on Holy Island (or Lindisfarne). We spent the afternoon watching small waders in the mud around the harbour as the tide was out and saw kittiwakes on a nearby cliff.
We decided to have one last go before we left, managing to get on one of the early morning boats. It had only six other people onboard and a cast-iron guaranteed landing on Staple Island, the National Trust run bird sanctuary. We did land and what a treat! Lots of time to wander on the rocks and grass, near ropes separating us from the nesting birds by only a few feet. They seemed oblivious to us as they had got used to the rangers being there alongside general visitors. This meant we saw literally hundreds of puffins close up as they came in and out of their underground burrows. So one line crossed off the wish-list. The photo below is one that Alyson took with my digital SLR camera.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Northumberland and I plan to post a blog devoted entirely to this beautiful county.
At the end of June Alyson’s recently changed work pattern meant that we had time for a long-weekend break, so we stopped at The Windmill in Scarborough for two nights. It exceeded all our expectations. The owners have done a great job in the 18 months since they took it over. They have developed it tastefully, added some home comforts and wi-fi whilst at the same time maintaining the character of the place. The balcony went all the way round and we had to walk under the sails. Admittedly the views were over the rooftops of the nearby houses towards the sea and hills. Someone on Trip Advisor wrote that it was in the ‘wrong place’ and views over hills and meadows would have been nicer. As the owner said in reply that was the case when it was built but, they can’t be held responsible for the decisions of local planners over the years to allow residential development! There have been windmills on the site for more than 400 years, with the present one originating from 1784. It was restored after becoming derelict for many years after it ground the last corn in 1927.
The accommodation was warm and the en-suite in the rounded room behind our bedroom was modern and comfortable. The wind rattled round it during the night due to being the highest building in the area, and I know it will be much colder and breezy in winter. The steps up to it are on the outside and could be treacherous if there was snow or ice on the ground. Breakfast was served in the reception area at the base of the windmill and the outbuildings serve as the other rooms of the hotel. The car park has ‘spaces’ for seven cars, but anything larger than a family saloon will struggle to park in them.
We enjoyed the break, going for a meal with Janice, our friend from university who trained with Alyson almost forty years ago now, and her partner Graham. Janice declared that despite living in Scarborough for many years she had always wanted to stay in the windmill, and now she had seen it they would definitely book it sometime. As a family we always enjoy stays in Scarborough, and I have been going there since I was about five. Dad was evacuated to a hotel, and went to a local school during the second world war. It was considered safer than his boyhood home of industrial Middlesbrough – a prime target for German bombers.
We managed an eight-mile walk from the South Bay cliffs all the way along the sea front to the Sea Life Centre at Scalby Mills. Lunch was at the recently refurbished Watermark Cafe on Royal Albert Drive, just down from the bus turning circle on the North Bay.
So another one ticked off and I know we will return in the future.
Seeing a kingfisher was proving more difficult, but that was no surprise as this small bird is well-known to be elusive and if you see one it often described as ‘a flash of blue’ as they rarely perch on a branch. That didn’t stop everyone Alyson mentioned it to coming up with plenty of advice, and claiming to have seen lots of them. Karen, Alyson’s sister, said we need to go on a canal holiday as that is where she had seen them many times. The lady we rented our holiday cottage in Ireland from in July said that the river boat trip in Bath was a good one as well. Someone else had mentioned that trip and as our son David lives there we have set him the task of booking it for the next time we visit.
Plenty of the RSPB reserves have kingfishers on the ‘recent sightings list’ often as ‘in flight’, but we never seemed to be there at the right time. This was part of my plan when I bought Alyson RSPB membership for her birthday. Driving up to Northumberland I stopped at a truck stop near Carnforth for lunch. Alyson declared herself unimpressed with my choice of this stark, industrial looking place, despite my protestations that it was perfectly ok. I came clean as we got out of the car and handed her the early present of a membership card, bird guide book and another with information on all the reserves. We drove to nearby Leighton Moss, the one Pete volunteers at. He told that me if we went to the Eric Morecambe hide we may see kingfishers, perched on the fence posts in front of the hide overlooking the tidal marsh there. We had lunch in the wonderful cafe at the visitor centre, drove down a very narrow track under a railway bridge to the car park near the hides in the reed beds. Eric Morecambe hide is large & comfortable, with plenty of poster to help you identify the birds. This was Alyson’s first formal bird-watching experience. We didn’t see a kingfisher but saw little egret, a heron and many species of ducks and waders.
Over the months we kept looking. Then two weeks ago we saw one very close to home. We have been looking after our eldest son Michael’s new house in Northwich whilst he was working in Australia for three months. On one of the visits we took a trip to nearby Marbury Country Park close to the historic Anderton Boat Lift. We walked to the mere and the bird watching screen there. A couple of weeks previously we had visited and not seen much except coots, moorhens and lots of mallards. We did see a nut hatch in the tree on the edge of the mere. This time, however, there were tufted ducks, cormorants and what we now call our ‘daily heron’ as it seems we always see one of these wherever we go – even in the sea off the beach in Ireland. We saw three together that day at Marbury Park. Then it happened! Alyson exclaimed ‘what is that..’ as a small bird flashed past on the edge of the bushes below and landed on a branch. Alyson managed to see it through her binoculars ‘It’s a kingfisher, yes it is!’ I was sat at the wrong angle to see it through mine, and after about 20 seconds it flew away and I saw the ‘blue flash’. Alyson was delighted and we stayed a while longer but it didn’t make another appearance. Walking along the edge of the mere we saw great crested grebe, the three herons, little egrets, and a cormorant. Two men were in the screen when we came back and told us the kingfisher had made a couple more appearances. We didn’t see it again, but Alyson had finally achieved her wish list.
This past week we were walking along the river Severn in Shrewsbury with my university friend Clare and her husband Stuart – and as we came under the railway bridge Alyson saw another kingfisher in flight. I don’t have an original photograph of the bird we saw, so that one is still on my own wish list.
I wait with interest the next experiences/challenges Alyson comes up with.
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