When the Boat comes in.......

The second first was for me to have a run ashore in Newcastle, something I managed last weekend while we went up to see our oldest daughter Rebecca. She actually lives in Hinton near Jesmond, but its all Newcastle really, so we stayed in the 'Stag and Hen' Quality Inn in the centre of town.

To be honest i was a bit disappointed at first, there were no lads with their shirts off, and very few lasses were of head turning standard, well not for their looks anyway!! Fair enough though I thought I would give it a few hours and see how things developed. So where better to get a right eye full of Newcastle evening entertainment than in the famous Bigg Market, which was handily placed right by our billet.

I expected something a lot bigger, with no pun intended, like a market place befitting one of the biggest cities in England, but actually the Bigg market is quite a small area from which lanes and alleyways lead off. Sure there are plenty of bars to be found and I was quite surprised that an old caching inn and a few other 'heritage' style pubs had still survived in the area. Chains dominate, of course, which means, gassy beer, lager and bottles but nonetheless, we found Timothy Taylors, Bass, and Youngs Ordinary on tap.

The Friday night was strange though, it was like you had stepped through four time zones compared to Liverpool for example. at 6pm the whole place was full of people out on the lash, maybe its a straight from work thing, as the hen and stag groups did not start appearing until later, and by midnight everything seemed to go quiet.......really handy for sleep, like, but not what I envisaged.

Saturday we did the tourist bit, Angel of the North, Gateshead riverside, the bridges, Jesmond, Whitley Bay and Tynemouth before heading back for a quick change and out again.

Saturday night was the posh bit of town near the quayside, and the four hour time warp seemed to have been regressed, as the town woke up much later. I don't know what got me onto Brandy Alexanders, but hey ho, I survived. The Toon Army were fairly subdued given The Arse had spanked thiers in the early evening, and mention must got to the stag party in Hawaiian shirts who we spotted throughout the day and evening, definitely the best dressed stag of the weekend.

We popped into Ainwick Castle on the way back to Edinburgh to brush up on our Quidditch skills, view the dungeons and watch he bird of prey demonstration, Hedwig sadly did not show up, and that was the weekend over. It makes a weekend in London a bit dull, but the mighty Bees won yesterday so all was not too bad.

Pole dancers win Eurovision contest

Well they would, wouldn't they.......

The Tufty Club

I have had a couple of firsts recently. One occurred while we were at 'Camp Pete' I saw my first red squirrel, hopping along the fence of the farm. It is something of a mystery why I have never seen one before, given that my in-laws live very close to the Red Squirrel reserve in Formby near Southport. The reserve there is one of the most famous in the Country but is under severe threat at the moment as the grey squirrel population is starting to infiltrate the reserve. 70 or so reds have been found dead in the last month , as rangers struggle to eradicate the greys.

Local residents are required to report sightings of greys but I suspect as the population changes and houses gain new owners, the messages are not always passed on. I know I am barred by our kids from shooting the ones in our garden, as they are 'cute' . Rather a dead cutey than the eradication of one of the most precious natural species.

...because we aaarh!

Loads of things to report, but so little time, so lets start with 'Camp Pete'. Pete was unable to attend the very successful 'Camp Dick' in Yorkshire last year, so he decided to host his own. Luckily my mate Sham has a cottage near to Petes farm so we were again snuggled in the warm while the rest of the crew pitched tents and did the nature thing......

It was an action packed weekend though. after a Friday evening meal at Petes farmhouse, and a mega breakfast there the following day, we headed for Ullswater for a short, flat walk, designed to be acceptable to my dear wife, who struggles with hills a bit......well, if this was flat, I would hate to do a hilly one!!

So suitably knackered we returned to prepared for another excellent slap up meal at 'Camp Pete' cooked by the host and his family, which made us all read for bed and dreams of the daunting task ahead on the Sunday....

Yes, its village raft race day, and we have put an entry in.......Sham and Stu are dab hands at knots so it takes them and Katie no time at all to lash four oil drums and some wood together, add a flag and away you

.......only problem was it needed five people to drive it for optimum performance, and the lads had decided to enter their own raft, and 'off the record' Dick was late arriving......anyway, we gave it our best shot, and came a creditable fifth, beaten only by rubber tyres, which aren't really rafts are they?

The village then had a b-b-q and a duck race which finished the weekend off in style, a defo good camp......