Just back from a short trip back to the North East, combining a three day stay with Scott and Ginnette and a three night break in Durham. Astonishingly, blessed with reasonable weather throughout. Never needed a coat, unheard of in this part of the country (unless you’re a Newcastle supporter of course)!
Started with a lovely stopover for three nights with Ginnette and Scott in Sunderland, during which we managed an eight mile or so walk to Penshaw monument (back along the banks of the river Wear), a visit to Newcastle and a couple of excellent restaurant visits. Honours even on the Board Games, although in fairness the oldies were competing against a single opponent in the second game of triv (drowsiness got the better of the second member of the team), but we’ll take the draw nonetheless.
Good to spend three nights in Durham. On the first evening Scott and Ginnette came over to join us for a little Tapas (well, quite a lot actually) and a few alcoholic beverages and then we spent the next couple of days doing a little sightseeing. Astonishingly, despite Denise originating from Sunderland and me spending 8 years there, neither of us had been inside Durham Castle, which is well worth a visit – not bad for what is now basically a Halls of Residence for University College, Durham.
We also tottered up the 325 steps to the top of the Durham Cathedral tower, where the views were definitely worth the effort of the climb. Ostensibly, we were in Durham to follow up on some of Denise’s genealogy research, but the concentration on specific churches proved ill founded when, on her return, she subsequently discovered that the ancestor in question had been buried at another church entirely – one that we did in fact visit in passing but not with the intention of researching its cemetery plots as it wasn’t on the research radar, apparently!