noo-castle, pet!

I never got round to blogging about the sans-Dulcie trip Graham and I made to Newcastle a few weeks ago.  It was freezing (FREEZING) and wet, wet, wet, as you can see from this picture, but so much fun.

There's still lots more for us to discover in the city (we'll definitely try to go back again) but we managed to see and do lots considering we were only there for one night, and loved all we saw, including the quirky street names e.g. Amen Corner, pictured above.  

On Saturday, we went to Tynemouth, hit the antique market (I got a dress and a book for £7 in total), ate fish and chips and walked along the pier in a foolhardy manner.  We headed back into Newcastle city centre, checked into our hotel (a Premier Inn on the Quayside) and felt a little bit bad when we saw the empty bed we'd booked for Dulcie that she would have been so excited about :(  But we soon got over it!  We went for a wander around town, ate dinner in a sweet little cafe and went to a gorgeous old cinema to see Inside Llewyn Davies which I loved, loved, loved, loved.  Loved.  When we got back to our hotel, the streets were in chaos.  We thought it might have been a typical Newcastle Saturday night (there really were no jackets to be seen on anyone!) but it turned out our hotel and the neighbouring bar had been evacuated as the fire alarm was going off.  We had to stand outside in the street with hundreds of drunk people in all manner of fancy dress and were very glad not to have Dulcie with us at that point!  Being just the two of us, the whole debacle was really quite entertaining, especially when three random men appeared with an accordion, a saxophone and a tambourine!  Once we got back into the hotel, we had a few drinks and then watched Top Of The Pops 1979 form the comfort of our bed.  Bliss!

The next morning we went overboard with the all-you-can-eat breakfast and then hung out at the Baltic, which was great, a really nice space with some good exhibitions.

Again, I felt sort of bad not to have taken Dulcie since, for an art gallery, it was very child-friendly indeed, but we made the most of our temporary childlessness and hogged the magnadoodle in the kids area, Graham making this oh-so-flattering portrait of me.  Actually, the real-life version of me doesn't look much better! Ha!

Dulcie, you'll be pleased to hear, had a great time at home with her grandparents and was apparently a dream to look after.  My mum and dad were delighted to get her to themselves too.  A truly win-win-win situation!  We'll need to abandon her more often :)