Quintessential England

So after tiring of dreary London and its grey skies, we traded in a weekend of darts and frivolity at the Market Trader (our beloved former local pub) in favour of a bus trip to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and some Geordie confusion. The weekend started on Friday, rising at the ungodly hour of 8am to catch our 9:30am bus. After destroying bacon and egg rolls, we fell asleep almost instantly - conveniently missing the entire peak hour bedlam on our way out of London. When we woke up, it was to a completely different backdrop. Gone was the urban jungle of suburban London - instead, we gazed out upon rolling green fields, neatly edged with post-and-rail or stone fences (with or without thorny hedges) and dotted with postcard fluffy sheep and horses. Granted, the quintessential English landscape was a little soggy and waterlogged, but I'm sure in spring and summer it would be just gorgeous. We even passed what looked like an old royal estate - enclosed with high stone walls and terracing, with a herd of deer grazing on the forest's edge.

Newcastle is a pretty city that retains a medieval feel (especially in the city near the riverside), and is home to the Newcastle United F.C. and the Tyne and Gateshead Millennium bridges.

Saturday morning we spent ambling around Durham (a country town just south of Newcastle). This would probably have to be one of the nicest and prettiest places we've been to in England - loads of narrow streets and lanes full of quaint stone buildings, with the Durham Castle and Cathedral forming a magnificent backdrop to the whole town. At first it was freezing, but then the sun came out and made everything a lot more bearable.

Saturday night we took in the Manchester United v Everton game at a pub - unfortunately the highlight (lowlight?) of the night was our friend's car's handbrake giving out, sending it rolling slowly down the hill into a parked van. We have just about overcome the traditional Aussie habit of calling football "soccer", reserving "footy" for the far superior game of rugby league.. Can't wait to see if any diehards take the bait on that one :-)

Sunday we woke to freezing temperatures and blizzard-like winds - so of course, we went ahead with our plans to visit the beach. As it turns out, there actually IS a sandy beach in England!

Given the arctic conditions, we voted against kite-surfing and wetsuit swimming, instead agreeing over lunch that "lovely" and "cod & chips" can be used in the same sentence without forming an oxymoron.