Come walk with me ... to Gosforth!

[desperance]

Hmm. This early lunch thing, with drinking: it plays the merry devil with a working man's working day.

Thing is, if a day starts late-ish (through no fault of one's own, I need hardly add) with a phone-call from a friend saying come for lunch, early-ish; and if it will take a while walking to reach one's friend; then one really has no time to get going, work-wise.

And then there is the walking, and the what-shall-we-do-for-lunch, and the going to the good fishmonger to find that his slab is bare, no fish to be had, and hence the adjournment to the pub. And then the weissbier. And the devilled whitebait and the pie-'n'-mash and the corned beef hash, but mostly the weissbier.

And then by the time there has been what-shall-we-do-for-the-kids'-tea and the shopping and the cooking and so forth, and then the walk home: well, there's really no time left for a working day.

So never mind work, I can have a day off. Besides, my head hurts. So I am drinking restorative bloody marys (all that tomato juice! so good!), and

This is the park opposite my house, what I see when I cross the road from my front door:




...but the park is a morass after all this rain (did I mention the rain?), so let's stick to the road today:




...but wait, what's that building at the junction?




Ah, it's the Pink Palace! (Aka the BBC regional studios, but guess what everyone calls it...?)






Meanwhile, just across the road




is the old Hunter's Moor Hospital:






...which they swear they're going to redevelop, just, um, don't know into what yet.

On we go...




...to a dead end?




But no! It's a footbridge, over the motorway!









Cars to the right of him,




Cars to the left of him




but our hero kept his eyes ahead, to the promised moor beyond the motorway:










On the left is Cow Hill:




but ahead the lone and level path stretches far away.




Except it's not so lone, actually, because look! We can has crossroads!





There are two paths across the moor, and me, I took the one less travelled by:





Did I mention the rain, at all...?





More cows!





And at last the gate, made by my friend Andy Mac, who has skillz (and an unfortunate fondness for the colour blue, which is All Wrong, but hey...).





Which brings us out onto the Great North Road, the old coach road from London to Edinburgh. Like any great highway it has a history of other names (soon it will become Gosforth High St; much of it these days is the A1, tho' not this stretch), but to some of us it will always be the Great North Road.





Here's the Blue House Roundabout: so called because, well...





And so at last we leave the moor behind, and come as promised into Gosforth High St. (Gosforth is the posh bit of town, where the doctors and the lawyers live, and so forth. And, um, some of my friends...)











And so to lunch, which I shall not show you; but here are some bonus teddies from a shop window, which are actually animated, playing their instruments, although you cannot see that here:





And another bonus, from the journey home: cows! On Cow Hill! (Which may look like an ancient moorish monument, but is actually spoil from the motorway, all heaped up and grassed over...)

Comments

[anyana13x5.livejournal.com]

(I suppose I should preface this with: Hi, I'm Melissa. I found your lj through my Dad's [martyn44 and how weird is it that my dad has an lj?]. You seem very interesting and your cooking posts make me very hungry!)

Since I have a vague knowledge of the area (I essentially took that route from Newcastle College to get to the A1), I know that's a fairly long walk, I'm not sure I'd walk that far for lunch... It's also odd to see things I know so well via car from a pedestrian's POV, but interesting too as I dare say it'll make me notice things more (like the fact that the house on the roundabout is blue). Mum used to work at Hunter's Moor, it's quite sad to see it boarded up, since I always thought it was quite a nice hospital.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hi, Melissa! Am now trying to imagine my own dad having an LJ, and - um, no... But I like yours...

Quick rule of thumb: it's never too far to walk for lunch. Lunch is important.

And generally the drivers I know say much what you said, but rather more rudely, as I guide them from A to B by the only way I know: "This is a bloody walker's route, isn't it? How many more back alleys are you going to take us down...?" etc.

And yes, I had long planned to have my next major illness at Hunter's Moor. Have now decided to postpone it, until I can find somewhere equally nice.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

There's some strange green stuff in your photos. It has the texture of grass, but it's green, not brown: it mazes my mind. I thought Canberra grass was doing so well this Spring, too, what with some rain and all, but when you say 'rain' you mean inches of pouddle that stay on the ground for hours, and squeaky sounds underfoot and soggy toes. At least we have tulips. Lots and lots and lots of tulips. (I'm very jealous of that green stuff.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

You can have it, for all of me. It's the end of summer, damn it; I want parched earth and hosepipe bans! I want ripe tomatoes and wilted veggies! I want to have deserved my sunglasses! I swear, we have not seen the sun all year. Barry has spent the summer right here on my desk, under my desk-lamp. Cats are not supposed to seek out artificial tanning aids in midsummer; they're supposed to be stretched on windowsills, slowly roasting in their own fat...

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

And so we have the simple answer to why our two countries swap populations at regular intervals. Our weather fits your dreams and your weather fits ours. If you find a way to send us that water, we'll build a statue in your honour, promise.

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

Again: thanks, I enjoyed that.