Am still at work - 20 minutes to get everything under control (as if!) before we leave for the States. Better start with myself first!

Got my renewed Passport with ONE DAY to go before leaving. That's called cutting it short. But @americanembassy was great! Thank you.

And how's this for a view? From the Ladies Room in the Parcel Yard at Kings X. Check it out!

Right now I'm writing this in the wonderful Parcel Yard in Kings X. You don't know it? Well, now you do!

About to leave Kings X again to go home & w a renewed passport so I can return a 3rd time on Wed & go to America. It's been a trip already.

If the Embassy won't renew my passport tomorrow so I can leave as planned Wed, I shall have no recourse but to throw myself into the Thames.

Attention fellow American citizens w dual nationality: if you were born in the USA, you can only travel there on yr Am passport. Be warned!

Why am I in #Alnmouth Stn? Off to the USA Embassy in London. Why? Going to USA this Wed. Last Thurs checked passport. Expired. FREAKING OUT!

Tomorrow, the annual (since 1762, wow) Shrove Tuesday Football Match. Begins 1.30 @alnwickcastle Barbican for 2pm kickoff in the pastures.

Next book on my list? H is for Hawk by @HelenJMacdonald and both books by @eviewyld a total rising star. Have a look: australiaday.co.uk/awards/20…

Thanks to a train trip to London was able to read The Road to Middlemarch by @Rebeccamead_NYC - so good! George Eliot's story & the author's

Waited tables. Like it. Get to meet you, ask my usual question: "Was it OK?" Today I got the answer to die for: "Really good- as always" :-)

Tonight a new TV series of Robson Green's #TalesFromNland. As #Northumberland tourism really benefited frm the last one, this is good news!

#DogOfTheWeek: meet Meg. Jack Russell. Lives in Appleby, Cumbria. V interested in photography, insisted on close-up. ow.ly/i/8E50k

In #Oxford went in the great @blackwellbooks. Bought "The Night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union". He did? To what effect? Want to know!

However beautiful the Cotswolds are, #Northumberland is hard to beat. And those who have been here, know it, eg, traffic jams? What's that?

Been south for friend's bday party in great little18th c coaching inn thefiveallsfilkins.co.uk. Nearby woollen shop too tinyurl.com/oyphxe5

Job alert! Full-time cook needed in our Buffet (8hr shift between 8am-7pm) incl either Sat or Sun. Pls email CV to [email protected] :-)

#DogOfTheWeek: 'Pied', Border Collie, v sophis, guards a Welsh art gallery, not sheep. stdavidsstudiogallery.co.uk