Shoes in the mud

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Good progress along the wall despite our depleted party. Lola, Nell and I have now spent three days in a row pounding westwards from Chesters and have today done a fabulous, albeit short stretch, from Housesteads to Vindolanda. This bit goes up and down so the mileage doubles, crosses a lough we feel sure inspired the King Arthur legend, and goes through wonderful Sycamore Gap (a spot every fan of the movie of Robin Hood the Prince of Thieves will know). I really enjoyed the turf-topped sections of the wall covered in waving grasses, mats of purple thyme and lady's bed straw and beyond that views to die for.

It was also the best bit though I grouchily found that there were rather too many walkers sharing the route with us (ie, about 50 in total walking in both directions, which I suppose is less than the number I see or push past on the way to school when we are back in London...)

And then we veered off the wall to Vindolanda, not sure of what we'd find, and found absolute treasure. Here an archaeological dig is ongoing and while we were there the team pulled out a leather sandal (about size six and therefore a man's). Pete saw it come out; we saw it popped into a plastic bag for recording.

This is also the place where the anaerobic soil conditions (ie, starved of oxygen) have led to the most amazing discoveries: the letters and notes of daily life. It was here that they dug up a birthday party invitation from a lady (not just an obvious sign that Roman women were at the forts - don't tell Hadrian - but also that this Roman woman could write very elegantly.

Vindolanda is a brilliant place, and if you don't want to be a tourist here you can always come as an archaeological volunteer. From our brief visit it is clear that both Pete and Lola are very tempted, with Lola actually begging to learn Latin (they have fabulous primers there including Minimous (aka Minny Mouse) and Harry Potter in Latin. Nell was content with just being an ice cream taster

Next stop Hexham for Hadrian's Wall

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Hexham – voted best market town to live in by Country Life readers in 2005 and I’m sure they’d think the same again bar the staggering property prices and lack of homes with gardens – is a brilliant town. It’s very nearly the centre of Britain, though this honour is more truthfully held by its neighbour, Haltwhistle. You can even wine, dine and crash at the Centre of Britain Hotel there, see http://www.centre-of-britain.org.uk/. It has a station with links to Carlisle and Newcastle and loads of independent shops. I’ve already bought mohair socks and nettle cheese – both local specialities and eaten at the excellent Dipton Mill Inn which serves Hexhamshire beers and local cheeses, a genuine cheesey pub...

We arrived via the train station - the second oldest in England - but there's still the Abbey to look around, and Hadrian's Wall to walk (using the wittily named AD122 bus [clue: it's the same number as the year Hadrian visited Britain and commissioned the wall]) but we have had time to visit the Old Gaol http://www.tynedaleheritage.org/ which is the most disabled-access friendly museum I’ve ever been in despite being built in 1332. It had a lift taking you to the dungeons and then up two floors in a bid to explain why the Archbishop of York and later the March Wardens needed a purpose built jail – the first in England – in Hexham. Yet again it seems to hang on the activities of the Border Reivers doing reprisal raids and cattle thieving in the debatable lands.

Into the poison garden

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Lola

This is a cautionary story about Qhat (pronounced cat).

Once upon a time a man went into a poison garden and he saw qhat. He asked what's qhat doing here - in a cage - I've been feeding it to my mates and telling them it is harmless. So the man taking him around says it produces lung cancer, heart disease and makes your teeth fall out. So he had to tell his mates that they were going to get lung cancer, heart disease and their teeth would fall out.

Some other poisonous plants to watch out for - info learnt at Alnwick Garden - are deadly nightshade, ivy, hemlock, dock, stinging nettles, rhubarb, foxgloves, giant hogwee, mandrake and angel's trumpet.

Flying owls

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nell and Lola (pic of Nell with a barn owl)

Nell: It was fun flying an owl. I had to wear a big glove and then the owl flew over to me really fast (and quietly) and the man gave it some food to help it get lots of energy. Harry Potter had a plain white owl with a bit of brown on its head but my one wasn't snowy white.

Lola: They look heavy, but they weren't. It was strange. I know you shouldn't, but I'd still like to keep an owl as a pet.

Knight's quest

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from XX

COPY TO COME

I want a treehouse

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (looking inspired in the pic despite three sleepless nights in a row)

The treehouse at Alnwick in Northumberland is spectacular - and the biggest in the world. I didn't just enjoy visiting it - trip-trapping over the rope bridges, admiring the giant chairs or winding your way up to the crows' nest views - I've now got something to think out how to squeeze into our pocket home in London (other than world peace, education, and climate change concerns) as I lay awake failing to visit the land of nod.

For my friend Fiona

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

At last we've got to walk around in your old manor, Berwick-on-Tweed. In fact we went on a mini pilgrimage there to buy the latest Harry Potter and found that WHSmith had sold 450 copies on the very first day of the book's release. Lola hasn't lifted her head out of the book since we bought it for her and will require a lot of bribing, coaxing, pocket money raises to prevent her telling us the ending when she finishes it... all too soon.

The good news is that we've found a ruined peel tower that we think you should snap up and turn into a holiday home... As you said about Mottingham, we can't afford not to.

Practically ever since I met you I've been meaning to visit your old haunts and I have to say that I'm dead impressed. Chips in Seahouses; a picnic on Holy Island with castles behind us and infront of us, fab food and friendly people - really Northumberland is perfect. Thanks for being the inspiration to get us here!

Crossing the border

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola (here's Pete in Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland minutes after crossing back from Scotland)

By train you just don't notice the border, but if you go by road from England into Scotland then you are in for a treat. First a warning notice that in a mile you'll hit the border and then at 60mph you can enjoy flashing past the Scottish blue and white flags. You can even park at a border stopping point and take a photo.

But coming back there's far less fan fare and if the van selling styrofoam cups of tea has closed then there aren't even any flags (though they use a Union Jack not the red and white cross of St George). This is a terrible anti-climax, but must be a legacy of history, for the locals reckon you are in Northumberland first, Britain second, England last. And for that reason there are days when you might also snatch a glimpse of the Northumberland flag, which from a distance looks like yellowing teeth in rotting orange gums. Up close it's a great deal more regal - and one you will find on car bumpers and house windows throughout the county.

Water garden

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Alnwick Gardens - the amazing 12-acre creation of the Duchess of Northumberland funded by European money and NGOs such as Northern Rock Foundation - is deliberately focused around water, http://www.alnwickgarden.com/about_the_garden/index.asp. While the rest of England seems deluged - Worcester, Battersea are apparently flooded - up in Northumberland they are coping fine with rain, indeed they are used to cold, wet summers.

On the hour, and half hour, the fountains on the cascade are set off by computer and either bubble their way down the waterfall in the manner of a great French palace, like Versailles, or they shoot spurts on to the pavement soaking the innocent who screech in shock. At the base of the fountain is a huge pool with water draining off the walls which children are encouraged to play in.

About 20 solid-looking plastic diggers are parked there and the kids pedal from one side to the other with cargoes of water they have collected, usually getting wet but invariably grinning from ear-to-ear. You'd have to be a strange child not to enjoy doing this water shuttle all day, every day. Even in their raincoats the kids look as happy as children in India celebrating the first rains of the monsoon.

In contrast all those families who have either had to move out of their homes or got stuck on roads thanks to flooding must be loathing the recent deluges. As ever for anyone with insurance it's always alright in the end - albeit inconvenient for days or months - but with so many floods this year I think we can all expect higher premiums, and less coverage from the insurance companies at our next policy renewal date.

In Northumberland the farmers are very worried about the weather spoiling their crops. This is the time for the silage (grass) to be cut and for grains like wheat and barley to be harvested - something that is not easy to do if your crop has been flattened by yet more rain. Potato blight is also a risk too as the endless rain is washing off the chemical treatments conventional farmers rely on to keep this in check. People's immediate misery from heavy rain is of course the most newsworthy, and provides better pix, but bad harvests are in the long term much more worrying for us all.

I want to find out if this year's wet weather results in more people flying off to drier parts of the world for their holidays... I'm hoping it won't. But I know lots of people feel rain is the big bully that ruins their borders, picnic plans and holidays and thus they deserve a bit of sun, regardless of what it takes to reach that location, or how that adds up to making climate change (the very thing they are trying to escape) worse.

Meeting stilt man

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

Crossing the causeway to Holy Island on foot we were all worrying about tides. Although the tide table assured us the next wasn't due until 5.10pm, it takes ages to walk the three mile route, especially if you get distracted by little terns, crabs, cinnabar moth caterpillars (crowded on to ragwort) or the forests of glasswort on the sea side. Realising that at our pace we'd have no time on Lindisfarne I doubled back, picked up the parked hire car (a strange beast with flat sliding electric doors which make getting in and out of tight spaces easier but seem likely to remove someone's arm at some point), and drove on to the poor crowded island - it gets half a million visitors a year.

And then we saw how it should be done, Pete Thornett towering above us on his bouncy stilts which could surely get him across the causeway whatever the tide height. He was looking forward to the tides coming in so he could engineer a walking-on-water type photo to help raise awareness about epilepsy during his mammoth stilt walk from John O'Groats to Land's End.

Obviously conversation was a bit stilted at first but when his offsider (ie, driver of the van) Laura turned up the girls chatted away finding out which bits of Britain we'd all been to. Nell was delighted to find out that there are other people travelling around Britain and recommended Penrith...

Nell: It was lovely seeing some people travelling around Britain too, especially their van with two beds in. And the van had their blog site on it.

Lola: Cool. His stilts are really bouncy. He could jump so high. They're definitely better than heely's! note from a shocked mother - as he uses pro-jump stilts which cost around #135 there's not a hope... unless Lola commits to washing up every day and foregoing all pocket money for years to come...

When people are ignoring Pete - nearly impossible - he goes back to his van and dresses up in some of his many outfits so he can power back into the lime light. We had a bizarre chat in the Lindisfarne mead shop (specialising in a sweet wine brewed up on site just the way the monks used to) http://www.lindisfarne-mead.co.uk/ about whether a full flashing number or a were-wolf would be best for this island...

You can find out more about him at http://www.dangerous-stiltwalkerws.co.uk/charity or give a donation to Epilepsy Action or another charity working for people with epilepsy, FABLE, via http://www.justgiving.com/peterthornett

Stilt man's outfit, and incredible efforts to fundraise, reminded me of Lola's friend Florence's dad, Simon who took four years to walk around the coast. He painted a picture each day but despite setting himself this amazing task in every pub he walked into the locals weren't at all impressed.

"That's nothing," they'd say shifting on the bar stool. "There was a man in yesterday who's walking backwards around the British coastline..." For Peter the inevitable comparison is to the South African disabled runner who is now taking on and beating non disabled runners. I hope he makes it all the way - either to his target of #10,000 or the 1,200 miles stretch between the tips of Scotland and England,and that this keeps him in many stories for the rest of his life, because as artist Simon found, and Nell's found and stilt man Pete says he is finding travelling around Britain isn't just about exploring it's also a chance to talk to the most interesting, passionate and unusual people. And that journey need never come to an end.

1st electric-lit library

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

Cragside House, in Northumberland, is a Victorian masterpiece. The owner Lord Armstrong, known locally as the Geordie Genius, didn't just build a huge house he added every comfort. As a result it was the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electric power - in the 1880s. In fact the first ever room to be lit up was the library, and the power was switched on by the youngest member of staff, a 10-year-old boy. Lola was definitely jealous.

Armstrong went on to give his home hydro-powered central heating, a passenger lift, rotating spits to help the cooks in the kitchen, fire alarms, phones, servants' bells and even an electric dinner gong. At the time it was dubbed "the palace of a modern magician" and Armstrong was affectionately described as having "water on the brain". Going round the house now it still seems super-comfortable. There's a Turkish Bath (aka spa); vast rooms with cosy nooks around the fireplaces to warm your toes or read a book and telephones. His passion for modern inventions didn't however stop him from hanging numerous family portraits on the walls or pictures of dying heroes mourned by their dogs.

There's also several lakes which have a wildlife benefit, but were used to keep the hydro system working. They have a very good name, Nelly's Moss, albeit this seems to be refering to a local witch not our six-year-old.

Armstrong made his money building battleships (as well as less harmful objects such as bridges and cranes), but he is best remembered for generosities such as giving Jesmond Dene to the people of Newcastle - it is an amazing park - and his former home, Cragside, is one of the jewels in the National Trust's crown. It was good to see that the NT was selling Save Cash & Save the Planet in the gift shop...

Cragside isn't the only home we've seen recently with it's own power history. At Kettlewell our host, Anna, explained that this Dales village used to have its own electricity supply until it was forced to go on the national grid in the ?1950s. In a flatter part of Yorkshire the house we stayed in had solar panels to heat water and at our Aberdeen stop-off we are looking forward to enjoying the insulating properties of a turf roof.

I keep reading newspapers that maintain that it's getting easier to install solar - for instance planning permission may be dropped - but if the system remains as complex, convoluted and ridiculously expensive as it is now most of us will continue to think that creating your own power, by sun or water, is just a game for the super creative or uber-rich - the Armstrongs of today - rather than a logical local solution which helps tackle climate change.