First and foremost, I want to wish Amy Vermulen a very happy 25th birthday, and right after that I want to send a huge congratulatons to Amber Vermulen who gave birth to a little boy on the 26th. I don't think Amy could have asked for a better birthday present than a brand new nephew.

We have had a busy few days, although in retrospect nothing was as hectic as our first week in Ireland. We did of course, have a great time in Scotland as well, but we were excited to reach Hadrian's Wall in England, and a return to our hikes. The drive from Glasgow was a simple one and we were thrilled to find exactly what we had envisaged as our ideal farm hostel just outside the town of Once Brewed on Hadrian's Wall.

We were excited too, as we found ourselves the only occupants of this 18 bunk barn/house. We quickly unpacked our things, strapped on the hiking boots, and set of for a hike along the wall. Even though it was pretty late in the afternoon we had a pretty good two and a half hour hike. Amy may well say something different about the length of the hike, as it was her birthday, and the last half our of the trip was made in the pitch black.

Our farm come hostel - Gibbs Hill cottage - where we were staying is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, so there were no lights at all. This leant itself to great star watching and trying to name constellations, but the lack of light was not conducive to night hiking. We were probably fortunate to get out of the ordeal with ankles still intact. As an added bonus for celebrating Amy's birthday, we arrived back at our bunkhouse only to find the temperature much colder inside than outside: It was about -5 degrees Celsius.

We bundled up, wrapped ourselves in our comforters, opened our celebratory wine, (it was called "The Big Chill'), and proceeded to play rummy. We appeared more like 85 year olds than the young women we actually are. Amy may well not have had the most exciting of 25th birthdays, but every time she gets cold, she will probably remember it.

The next day we bribed our landlord to turn on the heat a little earlier in the afternoon, (thank you Norwegian chocolate!) and set off hiking again. This time D had found a walk on the internet for us to attempt. It was a a four hour loop, and we all set off excited about the upcoming exercise.

The first two hours were great despite a few rain showers, but for the most part we saw beautiful vistas and it was a fun up and down climb. The next two hours were not fun. At one point as we started to head south, we took a look over our shoulders. As Amy might say, a "twister cloud" seemed to be approaching: A great big black cloud was descending on us. Our last two hours of hiking were spent trudging up and down through rain, sleet and snow. The weather was miserable. My own main complaint was that the wind was coming from the side, so only my left butt cheek froze. i wouldn't have minded so much if it had come round the other side eventually.

You can imagine how thankful we were to have talked and bribed the land-lady into heating up the bunkhouse for us ...she had stoked the temperature to a balmy -3 degrees Celsius. After another batch of chocolates, the added heat started to warm us up, and the next morning we headed off to the City of York. This is where I had planned to meet up with my friend Rhiannon. We have now been staying with her for the last two days.. Rhiannon is a doctor in York, so when I say that we have been staying with her, what I really mean is that she works all day, while we bum around her house. Isn't it great to have friends and family?

Today we took advantage of Rhiannon's late morning start and she took us on a good walk through Harewood House park lands. After this, poor Rhiannon had to to work, while we decided to go for a run. We had planned to go for a gentle trot through the Yorkshire countryside, but seeing as we soon became completely and utterly lost in getting to our starting point, we ended up pulling the car up to the side of the road and running along a country lane. It was not ideal, but the exercise did the job.

Tomorrow we leave for North Wales, and I'm really excited about this part of the trip. I'm even more excited about the stop over at Darcy's mansion, Pemberly, from Pride and Prejudice on the way (1995 AE version- those who have seen it, will understand)

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