Bowling Shane

ST LUKE'S: It's my birthday, I've been at work since 7:30 (trying to cram the O/T in before the pub) and my blog is about three weeks out of date. At least. I've still got to finish my Roman Tales. Anyway I thought I'd bang out some more reminisces from our castle chasing bank holiday weekend in between checking scores in the Windies v Poms Test Match.

You may recall we visited Whitby, home of Bram Stoker, on the Saturday afternoon. Afterwards we drove up to Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Scottish border, checked into our hostel and then drove back to Bamburgh Castle, one of several castles that can be glimpsed on the horizon as you drive along the coast road towards Scotland.

The castle is stunningly preserved, perched high on a cliff, peering out over the dark North Sea towards the feared Viking raiders. Or something like that. But we arrived after closing time and we weren't really there to see the inside of the castle. No this visit was all about playing beach cricket on the huge beach at the foot of the cliffs and taking some photos to fulfill my lifelong dream of getting in Wisden. So we played a spirited game of beach cricket, with the Murali bowling interpretation for the girl, and got some wonderful pictures. Then as we walked around the rest of the castle back to the car we discovered an actual cricket oval complete with turf pitch. What a glorious place that must be for a hit.

Afterwards we had dinner in a curry house back in Berwick, walked across an ancient bridge and went to sleep exhausted.