Thought #1- I did not die. After a full day of driving on the left side of the road, lots of roundabouts and small roads, I am slightly worse for wear and shaky but still living and breathing. Yay.
Though #2- I did not get lost. I didn’t have a chance to print out directions, so I was a little nervous figuring out where I was going. It always worked out though- and honestly, it could only have been through divine intervention. Once I just crossed my fingers I was driving the right way when all of a sudden a sign for where I wanted to go popped up. Another time, I went through a roundabout to see the street I wanted behind me, so I turned around. However, after a little while, I realized I was heading back towards Newcastle and I knew, remembering the map in my mind, that I was going the wrong direction. Luckily I had enough juice in my computer to bring up the directions that I had saved and use those to turn around and make it to where I wanted to go. And only once did I drive back and forth and back again to make it back to the street I wanted.
Thought #3- I saw some really cool things today. I wanted to spend more time at Holy Island, which you had to get to via a causeway but it was just raining and I wasn’t prepared with my waterproof or good shoes (my Toms are currently drying on the windowsill), I just wandered around the town for a bit, got some cool shots of St. Cuthbert’s Island (where St. Cuthbert would go when monastery life got too crazy….), other cool shots of the Lindisfarne Castle in the distance and then said goodbye to the island. It was very foggy which added a great mystique to the small island and if the weather had been nicer, I would have stayed.
I was the only visitor for Finchale Priory. There was not information about the priory at all other than a few signs on the walls indicating what several of the rooms were. But at the same time, it was absolutely massive with many of the walls and arches of the chapels still intact. It was lightly raining as I wandered through the huge walls and underground passageways and it was easy to imagine the lives of the monks living there hundreds of years ago. The priory was right on a river with a path and so I spent a little time wandering around- it was absolutely gorgeous.
Newcastle, the Diamond of the North, has to have an Angel of the North and it certainly does. Just south of the city is a huge steel monstrosity in the shape on an angel with a huge wingspan. It’s really cool to see it from the motorway in the distance and it’s larger-than-life up close. I mean, it’s really massive. Its wingspan is nearly the same size as the wingspan of a jumbo jet.
I decided last minute to go see the birthplace of Captain Cook. It was a pretty child-oriented museum but had an interesting look at Captain Cook’s family and early life. Apparently his wife outlived him and all four of their sons but quite a few years- she spent those years in London but would prefer to spend the anniversaries of her husband’s and son’s deaths alone. There were some cool Maori artifacts and descriptions of what the tribes that Cook met were like. He has a very unfortunate story of course- circumnavigated the globe in both directions and yet was killed senselessly during a skirmish with the natives. The museum was also situated in a place called Stewart Park that had a little mini zoo with deer, llamas, goats, bunny rabbits, turkeys and chickens. A really interesting place to take your kids if you live in Marston (south of Middlesbrough).
Thought #4- The sun did come out, if only for a little bit. It was absolutely gorgeous overlooking the water late this evening. I love how the sun doesn’t set until really late! On the flip side, I’d totally get up in the morning to watch the sunrise over the sea if a) it didn’t rise so dang early and b) if I had a guarantee it wasn’t going to be cloudy tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment