This green and pleasant land

When I tell people that I’m from Northumberland, they generally look blankly at me.

“You know, it’s north of Newcastle”.

“What, you mean Scotland?”

“Well, no, believe it or not, Northumberland is not some drearily barren hinterland but (at the risk of sounding a bit like a Tourist Information Guide) in fact home to some of the most beautifully wild and unspoilt countryside in Britain. Plus it’s a massive if sparsely populated county - it can take well over two hours to drive from my house to Edinburgh. Perhaps if you actually pulled your head out of your arse and ventured further north than Hertfordshire you might realise that. You prick.”

Having spent nearly two weeks now back in the place I still call home, I’ve been reminded about how much I love it. Though I’m not sure I could live here again happily just at this point in my life, there’s something about the wide open spaces, the freshness of the Cheviot air and the keenness of the coastal wind that holds some irresistible appeal for me. Stood up on the moors in the north of the county last weekend, I was struck by the realisation that it remains one of the most uncolonised and uncorporatised places in the country. There simply isn’t the sense that the land has been neatly apportioned and exploited for maximum gain, regardless of the wider social and environmental costs. You can keep your out-of-town retail parks and multiplex cinemas – THIS feels like freedom.

All this is a roundabout way of pleading with fellow Morpethian Sarah of Not You, The Other One to carry on posting pictures from her various Northumbrian treks and adventures. Even though I spend most of my time some distance from Northumberland (either in Nottingham, Birmingham and London), Sarah’s regular “local interest” posts keep me in touch and remind me of what I’m missing – as well as hopefully convincing other readers that it’s well worth a visit. I imagine I’m not alone in saying I’ll miss those particular posts when she heads off to Greece in a couple of months' time.