We’ve had quite beautiful days lately, sunny and rather warm, somewhat like an Indian summer and it was quite enjoyable since September had been rather rainy and chilly. But you can tell that we’re heading towards winter.
When I saw her, I loved her instantly. She was there at the Luxembourg gardens, sitting on a bench, smiling to herself on that beautiful October day. What you see in her ear was not a hearing aid but an earphone as she was listening to music.
One day, when I am “old old” as Mort Reichek put it in a remarkable post, I hope my health will allow me to spend time thus enjoying myself.
I will probably not be listening to music on an iPod, as I really don’t like earphones in my ears, but I might sit on a bench with what the next generation mini computer, light enough to be carried around by elders. 
Talking about “old old” if you haven’t read this series yet, you don’t want to miss The Oldest Old project at Time Goes By, a week’s worth of wonderful posts by people like Darlene, Mort Reichek, mentioned above or Millie Garfield.
The project starts, blogwise, with Darlene, and you don’t want to miss any of the others, so go down the pages.
I am rather late in posting as yesterday was a pretty busy day.
This is a picture of Millenium Bridge in Gateshead, near Newcastle. Catherine and I were lucky enough to stay in Gateshead with Mrs K. (one of my faithful commenters) and Joan. Mrs K. drove us to the Angel of the North and then near Millenium Bridge.
Newcastle is a stunning place and as it was rather sunny that day, we walked around for quite a while.
One of the places we really wanted to visit was Holy Island, also called Lindisfarne. And in fact, we went there twice. Once with Peggy, but that time, we had somehow disregarded the hours of tides and the island is only reachable at low tide. That time, we just got in view of Holy Island and gave up, but not until I had filmed a snail’s progress 
.
The second time, the weather was not as good, but Holy Island is a magic place and although it was misty at best, and raining at worst, we really enjoyed our visit.
More photos of Holy Island here
One of these days when we hadn’t read our guidebook closely. It turned out that Souter Lighthouse was closed on that day.
We had planned to climb up and see the view, but it couldn’t be done. It didn’t stop us from taking a walk and admiring the cliffs.
Lots of cormorants to be seen on a huge rock, and this small memorial on the grass
Then we drove on to Gibside
A lovely day.
