Adding a splash of awesome: September 2016

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Missie's train trip home

Missie kept herself happily entertained on the train ride home from Newcastle while both Jo and I regretted not taking books. She even fitted in a gym workout at one point before finally settling down to have a nap...

Great North Snow Dogs

Ystdy as we were looking for somewhere to eat we found a random as snow dog, obviously needed a pic of it cos it was so bright and colourful :) then a lil bit later we found another one, and then another one a bit after that, Missie and I were in love with them all and even offered to take the white fluffy one home with us cos he was cuddly as. Later on we googled them and it turns out there are 61 of the big ones around the place, and 97 lil ones in litters around Tyne area. We didn't see any of the lil ones but found a few of the bigger ones :)

Day trip to Newcastle

Jo, Missie and I headed up to Newcastle ystdy for the day, we were originally thinking of going to go for the wknd but then Jo's friend Rachel got handed tickets for a day return trip from someone who had booked the wrong day and it was for the wknd we were planning to go, and Rachel let us have them. Very nice of her. We had to get up way early cos the train left at 7.04 but I got to see the start of a very cool sunrise when I was almost at the station so that was kinda almost worth it. We all thought the train was a 90min journey so when it was almost 90mins in and we hadn't stopped at Carlisle (the only other stop) we were all a bit miffed, turns out it's a 3hr trip down!! Not sure why none of us knew this but did make us go a lil crazy when we realised, we had been hanging out for breakfast at Newcastle lol.

When we finally got to Newcastle we wandered round a bit to find somewhere to eat and also the bus station, we kinda knew where we were headed so it was all good. Found a cool lil market along the way which we both kinda wished was in Edinburgh, though we would both probably be very broke if it was. Then we wandered for ages looking for food places (they did not have a food court in the mall, not sure how that is even possible), and eventually as it was close enough to lunch time we went to nandos.

After food it was off on a bus to find the Angel of the North, it's a giant metal statue which is pretty damn cool. Very windy up there but totally worth it. Also gotta say big thanks to the random person who was having their pic taken with it and just managed to be perfect for my size comparison pic at the same time :)

After Angel of the North it was back into town to go to Baltic, the art gallery. We got off the bus on the other side of the bridge to where the art gallery was so we could cross over and take pics :) Missie almost fell in the water on one of them which had both me and Jo lunging to catch her before she could topple in. We saved her and she's ok, not even a lil traumatized. We also found a giant fiddle on the way and Missie claimed she could play so obviously had to stop there as well lol.

Baltic was really really good, we went up to the top floor first which was a viewing platform of the display below, the display below was all on play. So many kids playing and as kids do playing with anyone which is always nice to see. We then wandered down to the play exhibition and wanted to see what was in the back room, turns out it was a movie about kids playing with voiceover about why they need to be able to just play. We grabbed a couple beanbags and lay down to watch for a bit. Made a couple new friends, couple of toddlers kept coming over to say hey, and loads of kids in out of the room playing which was funny cos the parents were trying to make them sit and watch but they kids all just wanted to play in the dark with the beanbags lol. When we finally made ourselves move (bout 40 odd mins later) we checked out the other floors, none quite as good but one was a bunch of random hooked rug kind of artworks. And the stairs were awesome, mirror on top and bottom so both looked endless :)

After Baltic we went for a wander along the river and then eventually found a pub for a pint and people watching :) when it was time to go we headed back to the train station, where after getting on the train and it heading off we find out we are delayed cos the signals ain't working. Jo and I went a lil insane but Missie kept herself entertained (there will be a separate post on this hehe)

The beginning of the sunrise