Newcastle in 24 hours

Oh yeah, I was going to talk to you about Newcastle wasn’t I?

You know I’ve got to do this in a list don’t you? Otherwise there’s just going to be too much text and I know you’ll switch off. Don’t deny it!

The Angel of the North
This was the only thing I really wanted to see when we went up there, but we were faced with our usual problem of how to go and see things when you don’t have a car. Answer? You use public transport baby! There are 2 buses that you can catch from Eldon Square bus station in Newcastle, the 21 and 22, appropriately named Angel Buses.

There are two stops you can get off at but keep your wits about you because blink and they’re gone. There is also a slight problem in that the bus stops on the opposite side of the road to the Angel meaning that you basically have to run across a dual carriageway which isn’t the safest option I’ve ever come across.

(I should point out that at this point it was raining. It was all kinds of miserable. And I left my umbrella on the Angel Bus. And yet I'm still smiling, that's how much I was liking Newcastle.)

So we walked up to her and our first thoughts?

Erm....she’s kind of not as big as I thought she would be.

I mean she’s big and damn hard to get in a photograph, meaning that you have to resort to arty type shots of just bits of her but she wasn’t the totally massive structure I was expecting. Sorry Angel. We hung about with some Spanish tourists, but really once you’ve seen her there isn’t a lot else to do so we caught the bus back into town.

As You Like It
I found this place on the tourist info website which has a list of places to eat. I figured we deserved a little treat so looked for somewhere nice and discovered this place. A quick check to work out if we could get there with minimum fuss (you can, it’s just on the opposite side of the road to a Metro stop) and one phone call later and we were booked in for a fancy pants meal.

The food was gorgeous, the portions were massive and the service was incredible. Two thumbs up (or four thumbs up if you include The Person in all of this). After scoffing we retired downstairs to the bar area to drink cocktails. As The Person went to the bar to order some drinks I started having a look about at the clientele.

My eyes came to rest on a bloke in a grey jumper and white shirt. “How funny. That man totally looks like Alan Shearer.” I said to myself. Then....”Wait a minute. That IS Alan Shearer!” How hilarious, come to Newcastle and see Alan Shearer, you couldn’t get more clichéd (unless we’d seen Ant and Dec or Cheryl Cole I guess).

Quayside

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge doing its blinky thing

Saturday morning dawned and our hangovers were knocking at our temples. We decided to head to the Quayside in the hope that fresh air would cure us. It didn’t, but a cheapo Full English breakfast did a pretty good job. We looked at all the bridges and were there in time to see the Millennium Bridge do it’s blinky thing – for those not in the know about the blinky thing, they close it and the pathway rises up and then down. Exciting.

The view when standing on the Millennium Bridge - that big silver slug is The Sage

Once it was back down we hop skipped and jumped across it to....

The Baltic
Hello modern art! We are cultured let us come and look at you.

Things you should know about the BALTIC:

- There is an exhibition on there at the moment which is uber cool by a guy called Maurizio Anzeri – he’s taken old photographs and embroidered over them. There could not have been an exhibit which was more suited to me. It was very exciting.
- There’s a very “moderny” exhibition that’s on the 3rd and 4th floors. When I say “moderny” I mean “I don’t get it”. And there’s a film that was flickering so fast it made my eyes water and started to become convinced that I was being brainwashed.
- Don’t be a clever dick and take the stairs. Get the lift. I cannot stress this enough. The stairs are a killer.
- The Baltic has the best gift shop known to man. I mean like seriously. As in we possibly spent more time in there than looking at art. I know the shame. But I don’t care because I bought awesome things.

Castle Keep
We like castles. It’s a fact. What’s not to like, it’s all history and stuff innit? You can go in the Castle and basically get lost inside it wandering about and up and down stairs and round corners. It looks tiny on the inside but it’s like a maze inside. I have no idea how they used to find their way about in the times of yore. It’s a wonder they weren’t all lying about with broken necks given the long dresses they would have worn, the lack of lighting and the craziness of all the stairs.

The entrance to the Castle

It’s not jam packed with exhibits and yes, those that are there could do with an update but I kind of liked that it was left alone and you could do as you pleased about it. And when you get up to the top you get some cool views of Newcastle.

View from the top

And inside you can totally pretend to be a gargoyle. You can’t put a price on that kind of fun. (Actually you can, it’s £4, but that’s pretty cheap in my eyes.)

And we managed to do all this in 24 hours (arriving in Newcastle at 12pm on the Friday and being back in the hotel room to get ready for the wedding by 4pm on the Saturday). Pretty impressive. We didn’t even get to go to the beach and play Pirate-themed mini golf which was an option if the weather hadn’t been so crap.

So. When can I go back please? 

The Weekend I Spent Mostly with Strangers

I seriously don’t know where to begin to tell you about last weekend. I keep sitting down to write this post and then my brain goes “Nooooooo, too much information to sift through....must...shut.......down.”

In these circumstances there is nothing for it to make a list of all the things that I want to tell you about.

1. Like how I met up with The Curious Cat. In real life, not just over the internet. Like person to person. I touched her! (Not inappropriately.) I really did feel like I was going on a blind date – I know this person but I don’t know this person, very odd feeling. Thankfully she’s not a freak and we had a lovely lunch surrounded by lots of people, but it was all cool, not everyone knew each other so actually in some ways it made things easier for me. There was lots of chat about blogging which was very interesting, talk of possible redundancy/job losses and the best way to keep partying until 4am.

2. I really should have taken a photo to prove that I met her. Damnit.

3. I totally met Mr Woo as well.

4. I went to Putney (and got temporarily lost but totally found my own way again – high five!) to meet another stranger – this time one of the hen’s bridesmaids who was putting me up for the night. By now I was well versed in talking to strangers so I wasn’t too scared.

5. Karaoke is possibly the most hilarious thing you can do on a hen night. 15 over-excited women in their late 20s/early 30s singing Wannabe? It was kind of special.

6. Floridita is nice. But. I would only go again after taking many salsa lessons. There is a teeny tiny dance floor and you can go on it if you can but you can’t really dance to salsa music in a big group, it doesn’t work. And you stand a real risk of getting whipped in the face by hair as someone gets twirled passed. Also quite a few lechy people on the sidelines wanting to start dancing with you. And all the time you’re on the dancefloor, you’re just getting stared at by the people sat around tables eating. Not sure how I felt about that.

7. The cocktails are good. But super pricey. Have the Eureka. Hello sloe gin!

8. I'm going to create a league table of all the hen dos I'm attending this year. One of the criteria upon which I will mark them is how organised the night/weekend was. This one is going to be virtually impossible to beat, those girls had taken care of everything.

9. The traffic in London at 1am is still bumper to bumper. How is this possible?

10. If you have been cocktailing all night some people would be dreading getting up at 8am to get ready to go to the Stitch and Craft show at the Olympia but I am not one of those people.

11. Only joking. By the time I got there I was ready for falling flat on my face and dying.

12. It really was a weekend of hanging out with strangers, I was there, along with the other Stitchettes at the request of Mr X Stitch who asked us if we’d come and hang out and volunteer for him, helping people to cross stitch.

13. Look that’s me with Mr X Stitch – he’s a very nice man. That’s me doing my excited face.

14. I helped a 70 year old man to cross stitch. He was called John and I loved him so much I almost kidnapped him and brought him home with me. I felt pretty proud when he stitched a ‘J’ all by himself.

15. I bought a load of DMC threads because they were only 60p and that excited me because I can only ever find them for 75p or more. And now my thread box is full and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t buy myself another while I was there.

16. I met Emily Peacock. Yep that Emily Peacock. Just call me awesome. She came to talk to us Stitchettes after she'd done a demonstration at the Crosstitcher Magazine stand. It was brilliant although I missed out on some of it because I was helping someone else learn to cross stitch - what can I say? I'm a good teacher!

17. When leaving any destination, it is always sensible to check that you’re on the right train, otherwise you’ll realise you’re on the wrong one and look like a complete twerp as you hurry to get yourself together and rush across to the other platform to get on the right train. And I’d like to point out that it was not my fault that we were on the wrong train.

18. Megabus is a brilliantly cheap option and I did get from Hull to London and back again for less than £20 but I really need to register the fact that the coach doesn't get back to Hull until 10.30pm and after all the goings on of the weekend, it might be a good idea to take Monday off work so you don't want to peel your face off the next morning.


And now I'm going to go AWOL until next week because The Person is coming to see me tonight and I haven't seen him for a month and quite frankly I've bloody missed him. No time to blog!

2010 - A Year in Review

This year I...

1. Got accused of being a terrorist
2. Finally finally got my wish for a niece
3. Learned to crochet and produced 4 blankets
4. I met Eddie, the cat of my life, only to lose him when he moved away (still sad about that by the way)
5. Broke someone’s heart.
6. Moved in with Dorothy
7. I had an exhibition with my fellow Stitchettes
8. I signed up to the cult of Weightwatchers and kinda lost an awful lot of weight (4 stone so far!)
9. I, you know, nearly died and stuff.
10. Saw more snow than I have ever seen in my whole life
11. Visited a new part of France
12. Fell in love again
13. Started a new blog (you’re totally reading it!)
14. Spent time with American Girl and American Boy for the first time in nearly 2 years (how was that a year ago already?!)
15. Watched someone pass away (the ex’s Grandmother)
16. Hosted my first ever giveaway on my old blog (I really need to do that again you know - next year I promise)
17. Saw Flight of the Conchords and Goldfrapp in concert
18. Got a better idea of who my real friends are.
19. Met Roy Hattersley and Henry Winkler (as you do)
20. Visited Blackpool for the first time
21. Saw one of my best friend’s get married
22. Babysat for guinea pigs for the very first time
23. Walked across the Humber Bridge for the very first time
24. Discovered that the gym wasn’t that scary after all and discovered the delights of Zumba.

All in all, not too shabby I reckon. Here's hoping 2011 is not quite as eventful!

Excuse me I'm terribly cultured you know

One of the things I have secretly been enjoying PB (post breakup) is the age old “I-don’t-have-to-answer-to-anyone” routine. It’s been refreshing to not have to worry about someone else for a while, to not have to let someone know where I am and how long I’m going to be there for. I obviously let Housemate know my general plans but there isn’t the need to detail every aspect of my plans anymore.


I took full advantage of this yesterday when a spur of the moment opportunity arose. Roy Hattersley was speaking at Hull Truck Theatre and Housemate was going with a friend who pulled out at the last minute, she asked me if I wanted to go. Why the hell not? The ticket was already paid for and sometimes it’s fun to do things spur of the moment.


I know. Me. The Ultimate Planner. Doing something spur of the moment. I’m not going to lie, it gave me quite a thrill.

It’s also fun to do something new and this would most definitely be uncharted waters for me. Roy Hattersley? Who? I vaguely knew something about him, I was pretty sure he was a Labour politician way back when and I was pretty sure he had white hair and I knew he used to have a dog. That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. (If you did want to know a little more about him than these frankly unhelpful facts then Wikipedia can help you out.)

He was in Hull to talk at the Humber Mouth Festival (are there too many links in this post already? I fear so). We Hull people are a proud lot and anyone who has a link with Hull automatically becomes adopted by us, we bravely take ownership of them and will tell anyone who listens that this famous person has a link with Hull. More often than not it’s that they went to the University. But that’s close enough. Roy Hattersley went to Hull University and was friends with Philip Larkin – that’s a done deal as far as we’re concerned, you belong to us now. (And he did Economics at University which most definitely makes him my best friend. Us geeks have to stick together you know.)

He was there to talk about a book he has out called In Search of England which is a collection of some of his essays and columns that he was produced for various publications over the years. I was a little apprehensive to be honest, I tend to avoid anything overly political with a bargepole, I have my preferences and my opinions and I tend to prefer to keep them to myself rather than be tagged with a label.

I needn’t have worried. Politics were not on the agenda. Little wonder given that the zenith of his career, his election as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, happened the same year that I was born. He is now firmly an author and, I guess, journalist. I discovered that he’s produced a phenomenal number of books over the years on a whole range of topics, from biographies of William Booth and David Lloyd George, to the publication of his dog Buster’s secret diaries.

This talk however focused on England. And his love of England. A whimsical and romantical (yeah it’s a word) notion of England, all stiff upper lip and rolling dales and cricket on the green. He talked about some of the stories that are in the book and I found it really quite remarkable. What a talent to be able to just stand and tell some stories to a crowded theatre full of people and fully engage with them and make them laugh. I think I fell a little bit in love with him. (In a “I want you to be my grandfather way” not a “I want you to be my sugar Daddy” weird kind of way.)

And he reminded me of something. That’s it ok to be proud to be English. I dislike that the notion of patriotism has been hijacked and has become synonymous with racism, it seems a shame, America has got it down to a fine art. But listening to Roy talk I felt the stirrings of pride in me, you know what? England is rather marvellous, I like that I’m English, I like our stiff upper lip and rolling dales (but unfortunately don’t care much for the cricket) and I think I should make more of an effort to celebrate it.

But most of all I liked Roy Hattersley.

At the end of the talk his book was on sale and he was there signing copies. I bought a copy of the book that I really can’t afford because I just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to get a signed copy. (I’m all about meeting the famous people, one day I’ll tell you about the time I met Henry Winkler and interviewed Mark Owen from Take That.) As I drew closer to him I felt the familiar nerves and shakiness set in, I would love to say that I am cool and calm in the face of fame but I’m absolutely not, I get completely over-awed by it and usually make a fool out of myself.

I wanted to say something to him but I wasn’t sure what.

This might be my only opportunity.

Say something.

Anything!

“I’m really glad you came!” I blurted out in my most nerdiest style.

“Well thank you for coming” came the stock reply.

I felt like I needed to get over just how much I enjoyed the talk but didn’t want to sound like a crazy stalker lady.

“No I’m really glad I came because to be honest I didn’t really know who you were...”

Good one lady. Insult the nice man. I needed to make a recovery...

“...But now I do know who you are and I would really like to get to know you better.”

FAIL. I meant “get to know him” through his books not in the creepy way but I was mortified with my delivery and waited for the tap on my shoulder and the inevitable escorting off the premises.

Luckily for me he is a true gentleman and I think he managed to understand what I was trying to say and he smiled at me, handed back his book and said “Well that’s lovely, there’s no better testimonial than that.”

He’ll probably never come to Hull again for fear of bumping into me.

I need to work on my style when dealing with famous people in the future.

PS There was a little talk of politics at the end of the evening when he opened up the floor to questions. It was inevitable that people would ask him about the decision to go to war in Iraq (he opposes it now but was all for it back then because he had been told there were WMD) and the state of the Labour Party now and who he thinks the next Labour Party leader should be (Ed Milliband is the answer if you were wondering).
 
PPS And if you're like me and can never quite remember which Milliband brother is which (there should be a law against 2 brothers running for Party leader, it's most confusing), I can tell you that Ed Milliband is what I refer to as The Other Milliband. David I call the Man Child because of his creepily boyish looks, Ed is the, lets face it, less good-looking one. Don't feel bad about it Ed.