the toon, the night bus and mother's day

This weekend my lovely sister-in-law Meryl invited us into Newcastle to celebrate her birthday. Saturday night on the Toon! It had been a long time... we spent the whole day running around like the proverbial chickens but we managed to fit everything in and had great night out to finish it off.

Chester-le-Street library does a "story and craft" activity for kids on a Sat morning that we've been to for the past couple of weeks. This Saturday it was Mother's Day cards of course – wallpaper cut into a bag shape and decorated with all manner of paper shapes and plastic jewels – even Oscar had a go, very funny, especially with the felt tip pens...
Elly insisted I 'forget' about the bag card so it could be a surprise, but kept on reminding me to forget throughout the course of the day! And then gave the card to my Mam!

Then it was time for our sausage-egg-and-chips lunch at Anne and Sid's; as you might have gleaned, this is a regular event which is great for the 4 cousins, who get together and proceed to run riot around Anne's neat-as-a-pin house. The highlight, as ever, was Anne's apple tart :-)

So after a quick lunch (they're usually more leisurely) we dashed off to Dunston to see our good friend Roger. He lives right next to the river, near the Staithes (see pic). I'd never seen them before, these massive wooden structures up close, nor actually thought what they were and I fell in love with them, if indeed it is possible to fall in love with an inanimate soon to be national monument. Speaking of which, I'm also very fond of the Angel of the North, even if it does cause a regular tailback (mostly due to rear-end shunts) on the A1 as motorists speed round the bend and come face to face with this colossal, looming, rusty angel. I love it, me. It was fantastic to see Rog and he gave us some of the best sausages (yes, more sausages) from the award-winning and locally renowned Rothbury Family Butchers. Very Yummy, and also a Very Good Hangover Cure, as it turned out :-)

After a quick stop-off with Rog, we hot-footed it to my Mam's to leave the kids; they spent the night there and Im told they all enjoyed it (I reckon we might make it a regular feature as we enjoyed it too!). Then back to the flat to get changed and out for the bus into town. Mik was unconvinced, I have to say, mumbling things about the car and the perils of night busses, but it was as smooth as could be. Geordie buses nowadays have cctv cameras on them, and we were through Gateshead before he got bored of playing with it! All of these trips down Memory Lane are funny (peculiar), it makes me feel both young and old, changed and the same. Not easy to get a handle on, but anyway, so far it's being fun.

Typically, it was raining sleet when we got into Newcastle, absolutedly perishing and I couldn't help sounding off a bit about all of the nutters in short-sleeved shirts, vests and no tights or jackets! And that was just the men... haha. Dean Street was slippy with the wet and we couldn't get into the lovely old Crown Posada cos there'd been a footie match. But we had the best night! Lots of laughs, lovely food (at the Thali, a Thai-Indian restaurant with a very entertaining Stannah stairlift down to the loos) and then the night bus home, which turned out to be very civilised indeed. Great fun, but I don't think we could manage it every week...

Thank god for Mothers, or at the very least Mother's Day, which provided the perfect excuse for an intensive-care, hangover-nursing, do-nowt Sunday morning and leisurely "thank-you" Sunday lunch at the Butcher's Arms with my Mam. No sausages, unfortunately, but the roast chicken was just the ticket.