Tag Archives: england

Newcastle on a Sunday

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Newcastle is almost a completely different city on a Sunday morning. The revellers are gone – or going, as there are still groups of people having pints at 9 am.
We located a shopping district and wandered through a few familiar stores.
We located a Dr Who Exhibition just down the street and spent a happy time wandering among the props of the Eccleson, Tennant and Smith doctors.
We had dinner at El Coto, a Spanish tapas restaurant. Alice and Keith joined us and the boys. The food was fabulous and they had many vegetarian dishes for Kieran too. We were very surprised to be gifted with a friendship cup from the Scotts. They are the loveliest couple!

Greenhead to Haltwhistle to the Old Repeater Station

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Today the boys set off to climb the crags without me. Last night my sciatic woke me at 2 to say hello, and since today is a lot of up and down, I decided to not be a liability and take the bus to Haltwhistle (centre of England!). The boys will climb much faster today without me. Yesterday we saw many sections of the wall, weirdly intact after all these years. It’s hard to believe the Romans created something so solid.
We dined at the Greenhead Hotel last night – tried a bite of haggis. Michael tried Keith’s black pudding (don’t ask, look it up if you must) and was pleasantly surprised. There was vegetarian menus as well, and we are finding many places serving alternate menus.
It was too cloudy to spot any meteors when I was up last night, and the rain was quite heavy early on, though there’s sunshine now. The weather does seem to change every fifteen minutes.
I’ve managed to find a pharmacy – codeine is my friend – and even got on the right bus to the Old Repeater Station. This tiny little place in the middle of the hills was used to repeat a telephone signal back in the fifties. It holds 12 guests.
I can see the ridge of the escarpment from the windows here and am waiting for the boys. They were supposed to stop at Housesteads, a Roman museum.

Walking the Wall Part 2

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We walked along the wall more today, passing through Gisland and Birdoswald. We are siting in an apartment in Greenhead. It’s a youth hostel but we have a place big enough for Keith and us all. They have a Greenhead Hotel (yes, that’s my first pub) and what seems to be nice restaurant in back. They have vegetarian fare so we have been lucky with the two for two as we travel on the Wall.
We saw many bits of the Roman wall today, lots of massive stone walls – left over foundation outlines and a few watchtower ruins. The weather has been changing form moment to moment but we have managed to dodge the worst of it. It does look like Newcastle is getting a lot of rain in the next day so tomorrow’s walk may not be so nice.
Our local bartender says she is studying in Durham, just south of Newcastle, and it is a lovely town. We may visit if Newcastle is too wet.
I think by the end of this walk the kids would prefer to hole up in the hotel room for a day or so.

Walking the Wall

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Our first day walking. My feet and back are sore. Michael is doing well and the boys walk with little complaint, though chocolate seems to help them along the trail. We are walking 4 days instead of 3 – we could’t get accommodation for the nights we needed.
Alice, very wisely, stayed back in Dunipace.
We are staying at Sandysykes, a working farm B&B. My boys are in the “bunkhouse” and I am staying in the house. The house is lovely, the owners made a wonderful supper and we are trying out the local brew: Brampton Bitter. There are four very young puppies all curled up in the barn, and we were chased back to the house by two skittery calves. We figure they want in the bunkhouse where a fire is roaring in the place – much warmer than the barn.

Ramping Up for Euro Tour 2010

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We are in the home stretch for our overseas trip. Most things are booked and I think the only outstanding concern is lodgings along Hadrian’s Wall. I’m sure we’ll figure out something with Keith’s input.

This weekend our house sitter moves in. this will give the sitter the chance to learn the house (read cat) routines and learn where everything is.

I also wanted to ensure the sitter had a good video collection on hand so I spent some time this week moving all out movies into iTunes with the help of Handbreak and MetaX. It was kind of fun and now our AppleTV displays them all. I was somewhat worried about leaving the movies in their old location (a hard drive attached to the hacked AppleTV) as sometime the connection is lost and I wouldn’t be there to fix it.

I’ve got our iPad ready to go for the trip as well. We have the camera connection kit and the international adapter set. So we should have connectivity in most places and the ability to post, e-mail, and upload some photos.

As for the trip itself we fly into Edinburgh on the 7th. Keith will be picking us up at the airport. We get to stay with Keith and Alice (and their new grandson and granddogs!) just south of Edinburgh for about four days. We hope to hit some local castles (which I think will really appeal to Aleksander) and Edinburgh. We hope to walk some of the country side as well and I may even try the walk up Ben Nevis. Then it is off to walk three days along Hadrian’s Wall. This is where I’m nervous about lodgings. We left it too late and now I had to leave it in Keith’s hands to book places as he will have a much better idea of the area than I do. We end off with a night in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for a night before we fly out to London, where we will immediately take a train to Oxford.

We have four days in Oxford and I hope to walk the old section of the city (looking for inspector Morse/Lewis landmarks), have tea with a cousin of a friend’s landlady, and hopefully stop in the Wychwood Brewery. I also hope to go punting, hit a few riverside pubs and walk the wilds a bit.

Then we train to London for a few nights where we have little plans. We will play this more by ear. Sandy is looking forward to the Tate and the Imperial War Museum and I’m looking forward to perhaps seeing the British Library. There is also a map in the library that Sandy wants to see. We will, of course, do the 221BN Baker street visit because there is some sort of law about that. I think Kieran is hoping to get a sense of the London Vibe and to meet some friends with which he is pen pals. Hmm, is it really pen pals anymore? It seems even e-mail is too much of a chore of the teens and IM is what it is about. IM Pals? Bleh.

From London we take a train through the Chunnel to Hamburg and then a local train to Schwerin where we will settle in for a visit with Kelly and Klaus and explore for seven days. I’m sure that it’ll be nice to slow things down after the whirlwind travel of the two previous weeks. Finally we will train to Berlin and spend three days exploring what we missed on our last visit. I may even meet up with Danny and Birgit! I haven’t seen them since walking the Camino in Spain and seeing them would be great!

Counting the days to our departure…