The Great North Run is the world's biggest half marathon and runs from Newcastle to the coast. It took place a few weeks ago but I haven't been able to get the photos up until now. The weather was absolutely perfect and it turned out to be a great day. Congratulations to all of those who took part and raised money for charity!
At the beginning of the race the Red Arrows fly over the Tyne Bridge...
Even the Village People took part!
Today was another beautiful day in the neighbourhood. We got the bus out to Jesmond Dene again and enjoyed a few cokes in the sun. Practically every inch of grass was taken by the hundreds of sun bathers, but we managed to find a quiet corner near Armstrong Bridge. We also had to make the obligatory trip to Pets Corner to check out the adorable animals.
This weekend is the Evolution Festival on the Quayside. Historically this has been a free festival but they've decided to charge for it this year. It is less than a tenner a day, so it is still quite affordable but I wasn't a huge fan of anyone performing so I'm not sure I would have paid for it. I volunteered for the festival though and was able to see a few acts while I wasn't working. I went and saw the Puppini sisters perform and was pleasantly surprised because I had never heard of them, but they were great pop-centric, big band sounding trio. I was quite impressed! The weather was gorgeous and I'm hoping that tomorrow brings more of the same!
Today was the day of the university boat race between Newcastle University and Durham University. So after a quick trip to the cinema to see Star Trek (which was great by the way) we headed down to have a few pints at the Quayside and watch the races.
Two posts today!
After walking home from lunch, I decided to have a poke around St. Mary's Church in Gateshead. It is directly outside our front window, but despite seeing it every day for the past 2.5 years, I've never had a look around it. I was lucky enough to show up while it was open, and no one else was around so a delightfully helpful and nice woman working at the church gave myself and two other women a tour around. The inside was gorgeous, despite having survived several fires, the Norman invasion and the civil war. I found the cemetary outside the church to be most interesting though. All of the gravestones were dated around 1700-1850, because city centre graveyards were banned during the 1800's due to cholera outbreaks (see, I told you she was helpful!).
This was the first time I've ever actually seen a tombstone with a skull & crossbones.
Today was a good day to be a foodie in Newcastle. The Newcastle EAT festival has started and there are a number of cool events taking place throughout the city over the next few weeks. Today was the IncrEDIBLE Fest held on the Quayside in front of The Baltic. We got up bright and early to have a look around the markets, but the only thing we ended up buying was some pretty amazing looking organic lamb sausages.
There were a few intersting characters involved in the festival...
But our favourite part was the cooking demonstrations, of which we managed to catch the fish and venison shows.
All in all it was a good day. We tasted some risotto with one of the demonstrations and felt in the mood for an Italian and wondered up the Quayside to Oliviana's, a newish restaurant on the bottom of Dean Street. We were incredibly disappointed. The silverware was dirty, the risotto appeared to have been microwaved and my pizza tasted like the inside of a dirty, burnt oven. Defnitely not recommended!
After being told by countless friends that I should get myself to Jesmond Dene, I finally went for the first time today. It is genuinely lovely. The weather was quite nice so the open areas were completely full of families enjoying the sunshine.
We went to Pets Corner and played with the farm animals which was loads of fun
We walked our way up through all of the dene and sat by the waterfall and old mill (though in typical fashion, the mill was graffitied).
Everything about it was beautiful and we will definitely be going back again when we get the weather for it.
