It's Grim Up North

A very, very busy couple of weeks, what with visiting my mother in Newcastle. The weather has been very good, though and it’s great to see Spring finally arriving.

Where I went
The trip to Newcastle went better than I could have hoped, all things considered. We set off on Sunday 5 April and drove to Wakefield in Yorkshire, where we stayed overnight at a Premier Inn on the outskirts of town, next to a curiously named pub called “The Rhubarb Triangle.” The day after that we headed off to Newcastle, stopping on the way to go to the National Museum of Coal Mining, where we got to go down a pit, which was very interesting.

We stayed at another Premier Inn in Newcastle, next to a pub/restaurant called the Stonebrook. My husband recently bought a sat-nav (it’s his new toy!) and we let the sat-nav guide us to our Premier Inn, which was out in the middle of nowhere to the north of Newcastle. The sat-nav took us right through the centre of Newcastle by the most complex route imaginable, in the middle of the evening rush hour! And that was only one of a number of weird / wrong things it told us to do during the week. To say nothing of the extremely annoying voice. My husband turned the sound off in the end, after I’d threatened to pull the sat-nav off the dashboard and hurl it though the window.

The day after that we went to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. It was stunningly beautiful, and I can’t recommend it too highly. There is a Victorianised castle there, looking spectacular perched on a rock above the bay, and the ruins of the priory which was once the cradle of Christianity in Britain. There were also a number of decent pubs and tea shops, as well as gift shops for the tourists. Going across the causeway to the island was also quite fun, though when the tide had come in Laura said she felt “trapped” even though we all knew that the tide would be going back down in a few hours. It rained a bit when we first got there, and it was very windy all the time, but I guess that it is always windy out there.

The day after that we collected my mother and went on a trip to Hadrian’s Wall. It was unbelievably cold and windy, and everyone was freezing cold. We hauled ourselves off to a bit of the wall that contains the most complete fort (Housesteads) and looked at that for a while. Building a wall right across the country was an amazing feat of both architecture and engineering, but when all is said and done it’s still just a wall. We looked at the wall and the fort for a short while and then scuttled back to the warmth of the car. Being a Roman legionary posted up there must have been complete hell. We then went to the lovely village of Corbridge where we stopped for a cake and a coffee before going to see Corbridge Roman town. Again, it’s just a load of foundations, but there are an awful lot of them and it was marginally warmer than being out on the wall.

The next day we went to Durham. I had been really looking forward to this as it’s my very favourite place in the North-East. It’s such a lovely city, with tiny little alleyways, gorgeous river views, a castle and the most beautiful Cathedral in the world. There’s not much in the way of shops though.

Our final day in Newcastle was spent at Bamburgh Castle. This is a huge castle which sits ominously on a large rock which rears up from the Northumbrian coast. From the castle you can see the beautiful sand dunes for which Northumberland is rightly famous, and the castle itself was good too. Well with a visit.

The day after – Saturday – we made our way South again, stopping in Leeds to visit the Thackray Medical Museum. The most extensive medical museum I’ve ever been in, it has an impressive array of early surgical instruments, and displays charting the history of medicine and surgery. My daughters really loved it. Then it was back to the Premier Inn next to the Rhubarb Triangle for an overnight stay, and then back to Orpington on Easter Sunday.

On Easter Monday we went to Tunbridge Wells to see the “Day at the Wells” exhibition – only to find it had shut. But we had a good day out in Tunbridge Wells nevertheless, and spent our time poking about in the shops.

What I made
While I was in Newcastle I did some intensive work on the Black Heart bracelet and since I’ve been back I have really put my back into the floral filigree beaded scarf and I’m finally past the half-way point!

What I read
I had borrowed “Cityboy” from a friend, and took it with me to Newcastle in the hope that I’d be able to finish it really quickly, and I did. This sorry tale of City folk by Geraint Anderson confirms most peoples’ worst beliefs about the greed, arrogance and selfishness of City traders, whose reckless pursuit of the quick (and easy) buck has tipped the world into recession. Geraint spent twelve years working in the City, so he does know what he’s talking about. While he may have left the world of banking behind, I think it will take a while longer for his banker’s arrogance to wear off – he comes over as insufferably smug, which puts a large damper on what might otherwise have been a half decent book.

What I learned this week
Don’t go to Hadrian’s Wall. It really isn’t worth the bother.