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October's PicturesEnough said really. Nothing to do with the beer, or perhaps it is I have no idea. This Beamish however is a living Museum as they call it. It's basically a huge plot of land with a farm, a colliary a town centre, a hall and all sorts of stuff kept to look like it did in the 1800's or early 1900's. It's pretty impressive and a good day out and when I say a day out I mean a day out. The place is huge, so huge it has it's own complicated bus and tram timetable which meant that a load of walking was involved. In fact we ended up having to go before seeing the whole lot, it was a choice of seeing the whole place and being completely walked out or cutting it a little short and still having smiles on our faces. Anyway onto the picture, as you might be able to guess it's in the Beamish Museum and it's in the town part of one of the buses that you can hop on to get around, just don't do what one person did, as he got on the bus he steadied himself by holding on to the bell rail ringing it by accident which was the signal to set off to the driver who set off which was news to the conductor and the passengers trying to get on. Ooops.
… is not there today. In a fairly tiring day that lead us to all sorts of places, some of which existed, it was nice to get back to watching some CBBC, well I'm not but my daughter is. As usual, holidays for her are trying to just do the usual things that she likes doing and nothing else. I am pretty sure if I could get a conveyor of McDonalds fitted and make sure CBBC was 24 hours a day and plug her DS into the mains then that would probably be a complete holiday for her. I'm not sure when she would go to bed or if she would, perhaps she would just sit in the one place and nap/fester for a while. Unfortunately for her it's my holiday too, so I dragged her into the centre of Newcastle to have a look at bridges... yes you heard. Well not exactly bridges but I wanted to see what was there and of course the bridges are always good for a photo op. As you can see here, three reasonably well known Newcastle/Gateshead landmarks. The Tyne bridge, Millennium bridge and the Sage Centre. Lots of walking was required, I never knew Newcastle was so hilly, well it seems to have one and it's damn steep. So after all this walking and bridge crossing and Sage Centre looking at it was time for something else, so I grabbed my GPS and asked it for the nearest English Heritage place to find it popped up with St Paul Monastery. So off we drove and then I sudden found myself committed to the Tyne Tunnel and had no idea how much I had or how much I needed. Luckily with enough change and a load of confusion due to roadworks we got there and were directed straight into the middle of what looked like a housing estate and then dumped. No Monastery there, so back under the tunnel and what's this directions for another English Heritage site. So of we went again, this time sign led and GPS in the off position as it's just bobbins. We ended up in Tynemouth and right at the doors of it's Priory, surprisingly similar to quite a few religious settlements on cliff faces, in that they end up being turned into forts with gun emplacements used in the Second World War after which they were decommissioned. Still an interesting visit but now we were completely walked out so it's back to the bit where I mentioned CBBC.
Turning up today I wondered why I chose a Travelodge other than it was half the price of the last three days for the next three days. Slap bang right on a huge junction with TGI Fridays, a KFC, a Frankie and Bennies and all sort of other stuff just off the A1 I had to wonder. I was firing up my Bluetooth connection to get the hellishly slow Bluetooth PAN going when I thought. I wonder if there's free wireless anywhere. Travelodge must have one. Wrong. I was scanning the local networks to find KFC just 20 yards away has one for customers. What joy. Not the fastest thing on the planet and as secure as an unlocked barn but there nonetheless and it's not as if I'll be passing anything secret over it. Oh no someone's hacked into my connection and no knows what I'm going to publish on Zamyatin just before it goes online. Well if anyone does that they'll be after me for me wasting their time with trivial data. Anyway back to the pic. It's the Angel of the North. Nearly as big as a Jumbo Jet apparently (in what way they don't say) and an Anthony Gormley art piece based on... Anthony Gormley I think... in fact is there piece of his work that isn't based on him? Despite the lateness of our trip due to travelling from Hull to here and the lack of great weather I thought that we might have been one of the few here, but not so. There were quite a few people but then again it is quite impressive even though I have been this up close and personal with it before.
We've not been idle but there have been no photo ops today so one of yesterdays pictures I am afraid. It started out in the centre of Hull looking for a large Jacket. After milling about trying to find somewhere that would have a jacket that wouldn't make me look like some sort of gangsta or hoody wannabe I headed for Blacks and found that as long as I wanted to spend £150 then all was fine. Strangely enough I found the jacket I was wearing just the ticket. After that débâcle we headed off to the Maritime Museum, lost about Whaling and death at sea and much about how great it would be when they were fully funded so we moved onto the Streetlife Transport Museum. By this time I was tired but still there was much to look at. There was a strange arcade only partially connected to transport which made me wonder whether the point was to be a break for the young ones, in which case some arcade machines that hadn’t been made in the 80's would have been good. However I liked it because it took me back and my Daughter played the games too. Trams, cars, bikes and horse driven carts, though nothing in much detail, however we did sit in a horse drawn carriage simulator which was quite nice.
So off to today’s wondrous escapade. Today we are at The Deep which is an aquarium sold to me by some under water glass lift. I am sure I saw a picture of it but in the end I suspect I didn't, it looked magnificent in my mind's eye, in reality is was a little less impressive. I am pretty sure the Blue Planet Aquarium at home is better but perhaps that's just my memory playing tricks on me once again. Don't get me wrong the place is pretty good and you do see lots of interesting things but I had my mind set on this huge lift that was glass all around. How I thought that this would work and how this would be safe for the people in the lift or the fish I have no idea, so to find out that it was a regular glass lift put me off a little. Anyway after exhausting The Deep we went outside to take some pictures and then it was off for lunch in the pretty Beverley and it's Minster much of it we circled many many times until we finally found a car park that was cheap enough and had spaces. Nothing much to report really, lunch was OK, the Minster was a Minster and I was cold, so quite soon it was back to the hotel to get warm.
Well since it's a half term what better an idea than to go to Hull. Hull the place of... well the bridge and... ships and stuff. Having arrived quite late only to find that the room wasn't ready, by the time we got into the room (even later than that because of a faulty key card) it was even later. The trip was eventful in that a caravan drive was pounced upon my the police the style of one of those cop shows such as “Police, Lights, Camera and a Policeman's size 9's in your face”. We witnessed a T-Pack and a rolling roadblock... we were in the rolling roadblock and not the T-Pack I am glad to say. Anyhow with little time we ended up at the Humber bridge and where else would we go on day one. As you can see the weather is marvellous, t-shirt and shorts as you can imagine. We did try and make it into Hull and got a little lost after the GPS diverted us down a bus lane but hey it keeps it all exciting.
Dunham Massey is full of Deer and so a day out at Dunham was a Deerfest as far a pictures were concerned... and to be honest I got a little bored of taking pictures of... Deer. So with so many Deer you would expect loads of good pictures of... Deer. You would be wrong. Perhaps I'm a little rubbish or a little hard on myself but I think there was only one really good picture and this was it. However they were all out, people with huge lenses and tripods and a the car park was brimming. Not the day to go out I think other than the fact that it was a really warm and sunny day. Trust us to choose that. Anyway I thought that this was a good pic, there were other ones but not many.
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