It is 11am Thursday but this time I am not in a condition for a major walking adventure. One loses stamina with age but not the inclination. What a tragedy? It is as bright as yesterday and the work and some commitments remain unattended. I am determined to lose weight and like the look of myself in the mirror once more. I will do it for me. So what are you doing still sitting here then? Go now. I did.
I wanted to be out in the sun and fresh air, still had no inclination to travel far or walk long. I walked down the hill to the supermarket and bought sandwiches with the intention of having a picnic somewhere. I fancied a prawn baguette and but settled for a three half sandwich pack, 25% less quantity, if price can be a judge?. Usually I will walk through the supermarket to the escalators to street level but it was so warm that I came out again and went down the side passage way which has barriers at intervals to prevent youngsters using for skateboards or cycles. The gradient is steep so mothers with push chairs or young children as well as the very old have to take care. This time a mother is in a rush and is only half aware that the young children with her are rushing about and using the barriers as a duck under game. This time there is no accident or banging into a passer by!
The news board for the local paper reads that a £15 million hotel is planned for the gypsies green stadium at the northern end of the Leas, the only area not given over to National Trust. This does not seem a lot of money. I decide not to buy the paper but read the story on the internet. Before doing this I think over the situation, This is an excellent position for walkers and a good place for east coast stopovers to Edinburgh, the Cairngorms and Inverness or south to York and the East Coast and the A1 route to London, or those who prefer a quite location to the hubbub of Newcastle city who use the A!M. Given that it is only in the last decade or so, that the major hotels in the town have been increased from one to three, with one motel at the outskirts at the end of the A1M and the dual carriage way between Newcastle and Sunderland, talk of a fourth suggests more business men and women as the economy of the riverside is revived. While the forty odd guests house family run businesses appear to do well with contract work, including with the local authority.
I check the internet and WOW was tight about the money angle because the plan is for a regional conference centre catering with seating for 1400 and banqueting for 800, so we are talking in terms of several hundred rooms, hang on the number of rooms only 104, so presumably there is a plan to get support from other hoteliers and use the transport system to convey guests when using the conference and banqueting facilities. I read further on and find that a hotel group has obtained council approval for the developing the project which promises between 140 and 200 jobs with a completion date in 2009. Things are moving quickly.
Thinking about the accuracy of the media information I make a mental and now written note to write to the BBC regarding their statement in the Whitburn Wear walks material which stated that the Windmill was passed to South Tyneside Council several years before the local authority was created! Just as I know things like that I cannot remember the precise times when things happened in my life and I am hopeless at judging ages and distances. I must get a pedometer and re walk the coastal venture before undertaking the commentary for the pictures, some 750 so far. I have previously managed to lose pedometers which you fix to a trouser belt because I am fat, or just clumsy.
I wanted to be out in the sun and fresh air, still had no inclination to travel far or walk long. I walked down the hill to the supermarket and bought sandwiches with the intention of having a picnic somewhere. I fancied a prawn baguette and but settled for a three half sandwich pack, 25% less quantity, if price can be a judge?. Usually I will walk through the supermarket to the escalators to street level but it was so warm that I came out again and went down the side passage way which has barriers at intervals to prevent youngsters using for skateboards or cycles. The gradient is steep so mothers with push chairs or young children as well as the very old have to take care. This time a mother is in a rush and is only half aware that the young children with her are rushing about and using the barriers as a duck under game. This time there is no accident or banging into a passer by!
The news board for the local paper reads that a £15 million hotel is planned for the gypsies green stadium at the northern end of the Leas, the only area not given over to National Trust. This does not seem a lot of money. I decide not to buy the paper but read the story on the internet. Before doing this I think over the situation, This is an excellent position for walkers and a good place for east coast stopovers to Edinburgh, the Cairngorms and Inverness or south to York and the East Coast and the A1 route to London, or those who prefer a quite location to the hubbub of Newcastle city who use the A!M. Given that it is only in the last decade or so, that the major hotels in the town have been increased from one to three, with one motel at the outskirts at the end of the A1M and the dual carriage way between Newcastle and Sunderland, talk of a fourth suggests more business men and women as the economy of the riverside is revived. While the forty odd guests house family run businesses appear to do well with contract work, including with the local authority.
I check the internet and WOW was tight about the money angle because the plan is for a regional conference centre catering with seating for 1400 and banqueting for 800, so we are talking in terms of several hundred rooms, hang on the number of rooms only 104, so presumably there is a plan to get support from other hoteliers and use the transport system to convey guests when using the conference and banqueting facilities. I read further on and find that a hotel group has obtained council approval for the developing the project which promises between 140 and 200 jobs with a completion date in 2009. Things are moving quickly.
Thinking about the accuracy of the media information I make a mental and now written note to write to the BBC regarding their statement in the Whitburn Wear walks material which stated that the Windmill was passed to South Tyneside Council several years before the local authority was created! Just as I know things like that I cannot remember the precise times when things happened in my life and I am hopeless at judging ages and distances. I must get a pedometer and re walk the coastal venture before undertaking the commentary for the pictures, some 750 so far. I have previously managed to lose pedometers which you fix to a trouser belt because I am fat, or just clumsy.
I walk on towards the town centre and a few yards further, with public houses on either side and the Minchella's ice cream/tea snackery with tables in the sun, as has one of the pubs, musicians who could be South Americans are setting up their amplifiers. This governs the decision about return route. However there is already live music coming a little further down the main shopping road. Under the Metro station road bridge there is the sound of a ballad singer, who is also playing the guitar, a middle aged man in a wheel chair accompanied by a young man and woman perhaps twenty also playing guitars. There is no where near to sit so I stand in the sun by a barrier which hopefully will avoid passers bumping into me. I stay only for one number eating the first two prawn sandwiches. But the next song does not interest sufficiently so I decide to continue my journey to the Wilkinson's store, a have everything inexpensive household store which does what Woolworths used to only better. There is a two floor Woolworth nearby but it rarely has what I want at the price I am prepared to pay. There is no market today and the opportunity is taken to reconsider the post war created concrete buildings which form two and half sides of the Square after its bombing. In the bright sun they look better than in dark cold winter. These will always be functional and a reminder to the scarcity of post war materials and urgency to replaced bombed sites. Present generations and non Europeans can have no concept of the physical devastation, except for those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The twins towers was a shock put a pin pick to what the greater part of Europe experienced. I refer to physical destruction and not the loss of life. In one corner near to the traditional shoemaker and locksmiths a premises has been attractively modernised. There is no going back to the Victorian style of the ornate fronts and tops, but different window frames and the use colour could make a substantial difference
In Wilkinson's I find the tincan opener and buy two for less than a £1 and then decide to replace the saucepan used to boil eggs without water. I buy the wrong size unintentionally. I remember to buy another packet of three blade disposable razors and fancy a drink, resisting a two for diet Pepsi or coke offer and go for a similar offer of still cold still water. I ought to have brought my rucksack and small drinks cool bag.
I cut through the market square by Wilkinson's to the riverside and the passage way to the ferry landing just as a vessel is arriving. I fancy a boat trip and make a note to check if there is a river trip this Sunday. There is not, there is one still available the weekend I am in London for the Cricket, but the two in September are already sold out. I have missed out again. I hesitated booking this year because of the weather conditions. There is now a large stretch of grass between the ferry and the Customs House building which provides a vista across the river to where the North Sea Ferry is loading vehicles through its two large cavernous doors for an afternoon sailing. There appears to be only one storage level rather than two as in the channel crossing ferries, but it is impossible to judge at this distance. There are three decks the full length and width of the ship and then two, possibly three others which are within its width to allow for outside walking. These ships are suitable for ocean travel but do not have the length to become cruise liners.
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