Hadrian’s Wall

A quick pink chair photo call on the lawn in front of our hotel in Keswick and then off to Northumberland. The hotel has one lift that must have been installed several decades ago. The voice announcing our floor said ‘have a falafel’. I didn’t want a falafel so I got out. Anne say’s you have to have been there to believe it.

It seems that the A69 runs sort of parallel to Hadrian’s Wall. I have to admit I thought the wall was on the Scotish-English border, it isn’t. I also thought most of it still existed, it doesn’t.  It turns out those revolting peasants stole the stones to build heavy duty crofters cottages. The wall, as expected, was a bunch of rocks on top of each other which I am sure ‘back in the day’ was both imposing and impressive. Today I would say that it lacked, well, height.

We did learn something. Going to the toilet was a communal activity in Roman times (see picture below). However, we couldn’t find out what the stick and cloth was used for, we could only surmise. Then coincidently on the way to Wooler Jeremy Vine (Radio 2) had a topic on Cheeky Bottom Wipes, it all suddenly made sense. Well I never, there really is nothing new in the world. Onward and upward, reached Wooler, our base for the next two nights.  A nice cup of tea while watching the world go by.

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