Lumley Castle from Riverside Cricket Ground, Chester-le-Street
Durham is a great county in the north of England and is also the county where Samantha lived till Robert and Jean decided to head across to Australia.
Samantha also has many relations in the north east and without the great help of the many friendly and kind relations, who have put us up in their homes (for great lengths of time), we would have had to fly back home to Australia, well before now.
Jackie and Richard’s house is in Durham….and a great house it is too.
The Hemmel, as it is known, is a converted barn, dating back many many years, with the genuine possibility that some of the stone is from the long since abandoned Roman ruins in Lanchester.
Richard is a builder and he and his team rebuilt The Hemmel and converted it from a barn into a great home.
The Hemmel also has two dogs, stables with three horses. Hmmmm. Zeus is the grey. He is calm and is a gentleman. Sentinel is Jackie’s daughter, Jess’ horse, and he is a friendly (mostly) tub of lard. Izzy is a thoroughbred and is somewhat flighty. Well, quite flighty. She kicks often.
We decided early on to earn our keep, with Samantha being busy vacuuming (neither of us would recommend a Dyson vacuum cleaner now!), cooking and cleaning, while I became a stable hand. This involved mucking out the stables, putting hay in the stables for the horses to eat, ensuring they had water and just generally getting the stables ready for the horses. I even had a ride in the arena, on Zeus.
I was genuinely surprised at how high up you are and let me tell you, it looks far easier than it is, especially when they start walking, let alone galloping……the side to side movement was quite disconcerting to say the least. Anyways, I rode twice in the arena and then declared my retirement from the pastime. Not for me.
We didn’t do too much early on, simply acclimatised, went out and about a little but not much to speak of. However, March 12 was an interesting day as it snowed bigstyle.
I captured many great photos of the area covered in snow, which was a real highlight.
Samantha also has many relations in the north east and without the great help of the many friendly and kind relations, who have put us up in their homes (for great lengths of time), we would have had to fly back home to Australia, well before now.
Jackie and Richard’s house is in Durham….and a great house it is too.
The Hemmel, as it is known, is a converted barn, dating back many many years, with the genuine possibility that some of the stone is from the long since abandoned Roman ruins in Lanchester.
Richard is a builder and he and his team rebuilt The Hemmel and converted it from a barn into a great home.
The Hemmel also has two dogs, stables with three horses. Hmmmm. Zeus is the grey. He is calm and is a gentleman. Sentinel is Jackie’s daughter, Jess’ horse, and he is a friendly (mostly) tub of lard. Izzy is a thoroughbred and is somewhat flighty. Well, quite flighty. She kicks often.
We decided early on to earn our keep, with Samantha being busy vacuuming (neither of us would recommend a Dyson vacuum cleaner now!), cooking and cleaning, while I became a stable hand. This involved mucking out the stables, putting hay in the stables for the horses to eat, ensuring they had water and just generally getting the stables ready for the horses. I even had a ride in the arena, on Zeus.
I was genuinely surprised at how high up you are and let me tell you, it looks far easier than it is, especially when they start walking, let alone galloping……the side to side movement was quite disconcerting to say the least. Anyways, I rode twice in the arena and then declared my retirement from the pastime. Not for me.
We didn’t do too much early on, simply acclimatised, went out and about a little but not much to speak of. However, March 12 was an interesting day as it snowed bigstyle.
I captured many great photos of the area covered in snow, which was a real highlight.
