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<\/p>\nWe are staying at the Lindon Hall Hotel at Longhorsley.\u00a0 Glenda used to come here with her father and their horses.\u00a0 That was long before it was turned into a hotel.\u00a0 So this is more nostalgia!<\/p>\n
The hotel is a\u00a0 magnificent building but suffering years of under-investment.\u00a0 Faded grandeur at its best!\u00a0 And it’ll fade a darn site quicker if they don’t replace the windows PDQ.\u00a0 Daniel, the manager, was bemoaning the fact that each replacement window will cost him at least \u00a35,000 to make.\u00a0 And that’s not fitted.\u00a0 And there are dozens of the things!\u00a0 I would say it will be a great place for the MacDonald hotel chain to write off a million or two of their profits.<\/p>\n
Currently they appear to be doing their best to run the business into the ground.\u00a0 They have shut the attached pub for three winter months and the price of food is driving away most of their other customers.\u00a0 But it’s still an amazing old house in wonderful park-like surroundings.\u00a0 There’s a golf course behind the hotel – and we even saw four people playing golf while we were there (for four days).<\/p>\n
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The view from our window.<\/p>\n
While Glenda was shopping in Morpeth on the Friday, I drove back up to Rothbury to admire the Autumn colours at Cragside…<\/p>\n
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But, boy, has it turned chilly.\u00a0 Having left Devon at a balmy 23\u00b0C in shorts, we were just getting acclimatised to temperatures in the mid teens.\u00a0 But today it’s a breezy 8\u00b0C and I’m being reminded of the cold winters I spent in the late 60s while at Newcastle University.\u00a0 Parky!\u00a0 Very parky!\u00a0 I’ve even gone and bought myself a pair of highly insulated polar gloves. And, guess what…\u00a0 tomorrow I bet it’s going to snow!\u00a0 In October!\u00a0 I ask you…<\/p>\n
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See, I told you!\u00a0 OK, wasn’t enough for skiing, but the ground did turn white for a while on the Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
On the way to our next hotel (closer to Newcastle), we called to see Aunty Gladys, one of Glenda’s mother’s best friends.\u00a0 A spritely 93 years old.\u00a0 I’d like to think I’d look as well as her in 23 year’s time – without the hair of course!<\/p>\n
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The other thing we had to do – and those of you who know us well will appreciate this – we had to go to Delcor in Seaton Delavel and try out ALL their sofas.\u00a0 That passed a pleasant hour or so.\u00a0 And their coffees were good too.<\/p>\n
On to the Gosforth Park Holiday Inn.\u00a0 It surprised us both by NOT being in Gosforth Park as we had expected.\u00a0 It wasn’t even close, really.\u00a0 We had, in fact, booked the “wrong” hotel!\u00a0 We wanted the Gosforth Park Hotel – altogether a different kettle of fish.\u00a0 Still, there you are.\u00a0 Accidents will happen!\u00a0 They put us in room 191, the most distant room in one wing of the building.\u00a0 They then upgraded us to room 45 – the end room of the other wing.\u00a0 A move of about five miles.\u00a0 Any further and we WOULD have been in Gosforth Park after all!<\/p>\n
In the late afternoon we had dinner with Kathleen and Dave at the Dome restaurant in the newly refurbished and reopened Spanish City at Whitley Bay.\u00a0 This used to be an amusement park.\u00a0 \u00a0Now it’s a collection of function rooms and restaurants and a hotel.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/20181027_204922-5484x2916-300x160.jpg\")
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Kathleen, you should know, was responsible for setting Glenda and me up on a blind date.\u00a0 But that IS a WHOLE different story which will remain untold here.\u00a0 Not even mentioned.\u00a0 But I might tell you the story about her crocheted dolls one day.\u00a0 Remind me!<\/p>\n
Until then… you might like to hear that…<\/p>\n
… an elderly man lay awkwardly sprawled across three entire seats in the cinema.\u00a0 When the usher came by and noticed this, he whispered to the old man, “Sorry sir, but you’re only allowed one seat.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n We are staying at the Lindon Hall Hotel at Longhorsley.\u00a0 Glenda used to come here with her father and their horses.\u00a0 That was long before it was turned into a hotel.\u00a0 So this is more nostalgia! The hotel is a\u00a0… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-north-country-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8128,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/8128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe elderly man didn’t budge.\u00a0 The usher became more impatient.\u00a0 “Sir, if you don’t get up from there I’m going to have to call the manager.”\u00a0 Once again, the elderly man just muttered and did nothing.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nThe usher marched briskly back up the aisle and in a moment he returned with the manager.\u00a0 Together the two of them tried repeatedly to move the elderly disheveled man but with no success.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nFinally, they summoned the police.\u00a0 Officer Ken surveyed the situation briefly then asked, “All right buddy what’s your name?”<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n“Jim” the old man moaned.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n“Where are you from, Jim”? asked officer Ken.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nWith a terrible strain in his voice and without moving, Jim replied; “The balcony”…….<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"