Barter at Barter

Travelling back from Edinburgh felt like racing sleet and snow, it was in front, behind, at the same time all the time. When it wasn't snow it was idiots trying to live out their misguided Top Gear fantasies and overtake in inappropriate places (it's a fallacy, Top Gear is a controlled environment and very far removed from reality like all rom-com sitcoms are).

After the driving came the pleasure, arriving at Barter Books in Alnwick. Stopping here is a tradition, an institution. If travelling North of Newcastle I implore you to make it a stop-off point. A wide range of pleasure can be sought at Barter Books, food, words and music. If your pleasure does not involve one of these in some way, I am not sure I understand you or why you are reading this blog. Maybe one click too far has brought you to this oasis and you are currently contending with the unfamiliar desire to discover a book.

Or a record.

Or a fantastic slice of flapjack.

I didn't start off with a list. I had a couple of authors and titles in my head that I thought I'd like to look for, and upon finding nothing available on said 'not-list' I mooched around and wandered.

I wandered far and wide, among Christian mythology and Northumberland folktales, across dead desert and dessert to dye for, from Jonathan Strange to Strange Fruit. And I found her. Jessica Fletcher. In book form. There's a co-author, someone called Don, but the book I walked away from the scene of the crime with a Murder, She Wrote book. I might just have to read it next.

Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain, Gin and Daggers
Barter Books, Alnwick Station, Northumberland

Postscript. Another tradition, and another I suggest you try out, is drive along the A1 around Newcastle. Say, Whickham, as if he's betrayed your younger sister for money. It will help you feel better.

Post-postscript. I have a particular fascination with Jessica Fletcher and Murder, She Wrote. This has resulted in me watching the same episode more than once on TV during the same day. To paraphrase the shopping trolley from Bo Fowler's Scepticism Inc, I was mad then, I'm much better now, I only named a central character in a story after her (see Coming Soon).

Not that Slightly Foxed, but a slightly foxed

I took my time, I circled around, read the contemporaries, made myself aware of some of the stories via radio and TV, eventually I got a MR James book.

The trip out of Scotland was fun. The rain was heavy and I managed to mishear a direction that resulted in a drive through in Edinburgh and Leith, but arriving in Berwick meant a trip to our regular chip shop (Canon, Castlegate). There's lots of books to be found in Berwick, with a couple of secondhand bookshops and charity shops. Berrydin Books is always worth a look, and I came away with an Ursula le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven. I'd never read much beyond the four Earthsea novels (there are four, I know most people know it as a trilogy but there's a fourth and it's the best in the series) [I haven't just stuck my tongue out in defiance, honest], so this will be a welcome addition to the growing 'to read' pile by my bed.

A trip through various charity shops and a market stall named Slightly Foxed but not the Slightly Foxed of London. Mysteriously I can't remember where, it might have been the heart-stopping British Heart Foundation, the blood-red Red Cross shop, or the plain and not very chilling Shelter, but I found a collection of MR James stories. I knew about James for a while, he's been mentioned by a couple of authors I like, and I've seen some Christmas TV adaptations, so this volume will be another good addition to the pile by the bed.

The rain held off. The old bridge looked fantastic against the new one. The ghostly closed shop frontages where slightly scary (in a broken-down, world economy way).

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula le Guin, Collected Stories, MR James
Berrydin Books, Castlegate, Berwick
Canon Fish and Chips, Castlegate, Berwick

Close to the edge (of the known world though not actually the *known* world at the time)

Easter was spend near the edge of the world (allegedly) and the centre of Britain. Yes, Hadrian's Wall and Haltwhistle. Easter was spent in the Youth Hostel Association's Once Brewed hostel.

Let's clear something up, as it bugs me constantly. Hadrian's Wall was not the edge of the Roman world; they travelled beyond it; they traded with people from the other side of it; and they fought with people outside it. No one in Rome sat down and asked the next fellow, "do you know what is beyond Hadrian's Wall?," to get the following reply: "Cliff, void and endless namelessness nothingness."

And what evidence do I have for this? Well, the gatehouses for one. Civilisations don't normally build gates onto the unknown void unless they want the unknown to come in, pay taxes and trade.

Youth Hostels are great way to travel. We have been visiting them for about a year, and while there can be some niggles the experience has been good. Once Brewed appears like a building built in the 1960s, with a canteen, self caterers' kitchen and a good lounge. While we were there there were at least two other walking parties and a number of bicycling groups. Unsurprisingly the hostel is on two major walking routes (Hadrian's Wall Path and near the Pennine Way) as well as national cycle routes. Everyone was friendly and mostly welcoming.

During our stay we walked along the Wall. We also looked into the unknown void that is Northumberland north of the Wall, and the unknown void looked back and said: "Next time maybe you'd like to walk here, too".