Greetings from Lord Baxter. Had oh such a lovely lunch onboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. Lovely view over the Firth of Forth (or the Fourth of Firth but definately not the Turd of Third). I saw the Queen's bed (just a tiny single bed, not even a queen bed for a queen, Philip got the room attached and his own tiny bed). It's very basic modern 1950's furniture, nothing fancy. Just what Lizzy wanted...to be normal. Got my lovely jumper from the Yacht, word has it some 200 lbs was dropped in that gift shop.

After our return to Alnwick we spent the next day at Bamburgh Castle. Armstrong dude fixed it all up, he was super wealthy cuz he invented tons and tons of stuff to do with cranes (not the bird kind) and all sorts of various gadgets to do with shipping and stuff. Now there are so many lords and sirs and dukes that I can't remember whose who. I know the Duke of Northumberland is a Lord (so I guess you can be both, I don't know), then I think Armstrong was a Lord (but not a Duke) but perhaps also a Sir. Oh yeah...his castle he fixed up in the late 1800's and he made this super fancy hall, I really liked his hall. He had a little aviation museum with bits of shot down German planes. Stuff washes up like old engines and propellers and stuff. Anyway it's a big castle but really different than Alnwick.

Ok so then we were castled out and yesterday drove to Beamish (outdoor historic park on 300 acres). We went inside a coal mine (that was nifty, and cramped, and cold, and dark, and wet). We talked to lots of Geordie's, one even was a coal miner nearby and he knew tons of stuff. Do you know the miners crawled in and only were in a space 18 inches high? If they took their shovel in the wrong way around they had to back all the way out just to flip it right side round. I asked where they pooped (cuz that's my job). Anyway they pooped in the carts that they filled with coal, cept they didn't get paid for their poop (not even if it was heavy and black like coal). Oh yeah, Bamburgh Castle had a poop chute and if it got stuck they put boys up there to clean out the stuck poop (think I'd rather be a miner).

Okay so that's your poop history lesson.

Beamish had other stuff, kind of like how department stores started and candy shop and trolley and mason hall and old bank and a dentist's surgery. Did you know that people could kill people with arsenic and that you could get arsenic from scraping it off the old wallpaper with your fingernail (cool!).

Today to Chillingham Castle, most haunted in U.K. A little odd, he's a Sir but not a Lord or Duke. He's 74 and just fixed it up and it's super haunted. His emblem is a bat, there's bats everywhere. It is a super strange place and he lives there but he had to sell his Irish Castle to buy it. He's sold the great paintings to have money to restore it. You can go on night ghost tours or stay overnight but I wouldn't. I'd be too scared, just of the bugs he's collected (their huge). I'm sure they are crawling around. Then there's the wild cows that are more rare than the giant panda, there's 78 in the world and they live nearby. They've been at Chillingham for 700 years. We didn't see them cuz you have to walk a ways and it was looking like scary rain.

Tonight it's time for chocolate hedgehogs (not the dead squished one from the road). We got them at the Chocolate Spa near the Alnwick Market.

Trip almost done, lots I didn't see but need lotto money to come back and finish up all the sights.

So many castles, kind of blurred together in my wee head. Alnwick my favorite, Banburgh very impressive with larger rooms, Chillingham is strange in a chilly sort of way.

Favorite bit...um...Alnwick I think and my favorite meal was at Cafe Rouge in Durham. Oh and the elephant safari, I loved my London elephant safari, and walking up to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral...and the chocolate.

Ta..ta..for now,

Lord Baxter