Angel of the North is damn spectacular. As we drove home on sunday afternoon it was peeing it down, misty, the works. As we drove past, it loomed out of the mist in a most spectacular fashion.

I have a gripe with Bamburgh. It was the home and fortress of the ancient rulers of Bernicia, one of the earliest and certainly the longest lasting English 'kingdoms'. It would have been one of the most important historical sites in the country, but in the 19th century some clown of a Percy with far more money than sense destroyed the whole site by building a fake medieval castle on it. I take some comfort from the notion that by the end of the exercise he still had no sense, but no money either.

I know of Barter Books. For some reason they always have a full page ad in the Festiniog Railway Magazine. I don't know Northumberland at all, but Newcastle is a very fine place. So is Durham. Two of my bestest photographs were taken there, and you can see them at;

[www.omnibus-systems.co.uk] and
[www.omnibus-systems.co.uk]

(look, if the boss can plant his Gilbert & Sullivan pics on the site ...)



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

ooh, nice pics. Ah the Tyne Bridge. I come over all sentimental when I see that.

Oi, our kid, those photos aren't there.

Maybe he's been rumbled by the boss ;)

Reasons to visit Alnwick;

The castle - exteriors for Harry Potter films were shot there. Also, the new garden which was at the concrete construction site stage when we went is now finished, and shoud look really lovely.

Folk festival in August - before you all laugh at me, I go to watch the dancing and take photographs of the embroidered costumes as needlework is one of my passions. There's lots of proper outdoorsy folk music, not miserable bearded English gits with a finger in one ear singing in doubtful harmonies about their own true love. Perhaps that sort goes on, but you can avoid it.

We visited both the castle and the garden. The garden is pretty good, be better in a year or two when it's grown in a bit. The water feature is splendid though.

the castle is also worth a visit, the tea shop is particularly good... :-)

Pictures now replaced. rust me to pick a day when some bugger updated the website ... we've paid some consultant lots of money to re-design it. Must have taken him all of five minutes.



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Dave - Wasn't placing them into any kind of order, just as they occurred to me.

Belochka - Anel of the North is damned fine, especially on a sunny afternoon when there's loads of kids playing football beneath it (yup, that BBC advert wasn't staged. Well, the hot air balloon was, but...) After a drunken evening in the college bar we wanted to do something random. One of the barmaids had borrowed her father's car so we shot off to see the Angel at midnight. My parents weren't impressed to get a phone call from me, banging on it going 'guess what this is!'



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

PSD - lol, that's a good one. I'm sure that your folks forgave you, as long as you didn't follow that up with "and we've run out of petrol, can you give us a lift back?"

Nuts, I really want to go and see it! It's going to be an age before I'm up in that neck of the woods though. I even have a miniature model of the Angel statue, its on top of the iMac.

I quite like some of Gormley's stuff, although some of it is terribly twee. I haven't had a chance to see 'Field' yet. As my parents lived 200 miles away frok Durham, I'm not sure I could have got a lift back...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

PSD - Admittedly AG does have some flaws in his work, but my admiration of his stuff carries me over. I don't know a lot about sculpture, so that may explain it! Henry Moore's work always baffles me, even if I can appreciate the aesthetic.

I have also known that on occasion very, um, confused students have phoned parents for a lift whilst being several hundred miles away. I guess you must have leapt that particular pitfall.

Wasn't it G K Chesterton who rang up his wife and asked the immortal question, "I'm in [such and such a place] - where should I be?"



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Most people just go to the bedroom and forget what they are there for.

Never been a problem for me...

Cerys from Catatonia once cancelled an interview as she had unaccountably woken up in Paris.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Hmmm, might visit Newcastle some time. My friend, Krissy's family live up that way and her Mum loves having her friends to stay. In fact, I have visited once, for a party. Krissy's Mum also likes to cook, and in large quantities too. Her idea of a good time is making a roast dinner with all the trimmings, for six people. She comes from a *large* family and likes adopting people. I'm not sure if it's still true, but Krissy told me last year that when she phones, her Mum asks after Krissy's friends before she asks how her daughter is.

Good second hand bookshop in Lincoln - half-way up Steep Hill (and it is - very!) and called The Reader's Rest. The place is like a warren - twists and turns very much like a twisty-turny thing in fact!

Oxfam has a second hand bookshop in Winchester - reasonable selection though the prices are a bit steep on some of them. Also have this thing about Oxfam ever since I did a bit of voluntary work for them in one of their shops and the old dears went through all the donations nicking the best for themselves without paying a penny - at other charity shops I've worked in, if you took it before it went out onto the floor, you put some money in the till.

Aunty Sassy - Thanks for the tip about Lincoln, I've got some in-laws that way, so next time we have to visit I know where I can go and hide! :)

Funny you experienced that with Oxfam, someone I know who worked in one of the Birmingham branches said the same thing. I send any charity bags of stuff to Sue Ryder shops now.

btw Don't know if you've seen/heard it but there's been a sudden burst of publicity about one of the sites you posted ,'anicecupofteaandasitdown.com'. made the front page of the Times and Radio 2!

it's on the beeb website as well

I used to help in an Oxfam shop when I was in my late teens, and that kind of thing simply didn't happen. Either times have changed, or it's something to do with location (I was in Kendal).



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

It was in either the metro or the daily record, too.



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Do something pretty while you can...