Thursday June 7

6/7/07 Day Fifteen. Thursday.

Hannah is exhausted and has bowed out of joining us today. She wants a lazy day, as do we all, I think, but she is more adamant about it, so she's taking a day off while the rest of us go off in our rented car.

We were slow to move out, but about noon we three went off to Lindesfarne.

It was a drizzly day at the start, and we decided to stop at a cafe there for lunch, hoping the rain would end while we ate. Just as we were finishing up though, we heard some loud cracks of thunder and saw that it was raining quite hard as about 30 school children rushed into the cafe clamoring for ice cream. We ducked out of there as quick as we could, pulled our hoods over our heads and went ahead and toured the priory anyway. It was a bit of a bummer in the rain, but it meant we had the place pretty much to ourselves, so that was nice. The priory is a beautiful old place, and I enjoyed wandering around there a lot.

After the ruins, we toured the priory museum, which was also quite interesting. We finished our tour and were heading back to the car, thinking that perhaps we might go somewhere else, too, but it was raining hard and as we were walking, a car drove quickly by, splashing me and Gretchen pretty much from head to foot, drenching us with water. Thankful that we had a car, we just hurried to the car, then home to dry clothes.

Terry and Gretchen went off to the store and picked up a couple of frozen pizzas for dinner while I rustled up some dry clothes and hung about the house. After eating we stopped by Barter Books, the largest used book store in Great Britain for a little looksee. Oh my, I just loved it. If we had had more time, I might like to stay there and browse for a couple of days. The walls were lined with glass cases of rare books and first editions, and just looking at those took me close to an hour. Lucky for us, really, (or we might have spent a lot more money) the place was closing soon, so Hannah and Gretchen found a couple of things they wanted, but Terry and I left empty handed. The idea of hauling books home through three airports really hampered my desire. I do admit that a signed first edition of The House on Pooh Corner did make me consider it, though.

Gretchen, Hannah and I stayed up a while sipping whisky (Gretchen and I that is - not Hannah) and gabbing, but Terry made a fairly early night of it.