Mike's musings

Trip to Newcastle

I'd never been to Newcastle before, and, in fact, I still haven't. I flew into the airport (modern, clean, uncluttered, etc.), met John, and we took the A69 cross-country to Brampton, where we were having the meeting. However, when we'd first booked the flights, the meeting had been planned earlier, and we'd played it safe: it was now a 1430 meeting, so we had nearly four hours to spend.

So, we carried on along the A69 to Carlisle, and popped into the cathedral there. Red (sand?)stone, some interesting medieval painted panels (in Middle English, not Latin, which somewhat surprised me), and a nice organ tootling away to some Bach in preparation for an Age Concern carol service. The war memorials for the Border Regiment were terrifying: lots of losses (mainly to disease) in the Boer War ("The South African War"). They'd been at most of the worst battles in the First World War, too: Ypres, the Somme, Thiepval, Passchendaele 1st and 2nd battles, Suvla Bay. The regiment had clearly suffered very badly.

Then to tea in the cathedral tea-shop ("how do you know that the cathedral will _have_ a tea-shop?" asked John. I just laughed), and drove back towards Brampton. Stopped for lunch, then on again. We were still over half an hour early, so we wandered around the town (nice little centre) and into the church. What a find! 14 fantastic stain glass windows by William Morris' factory, 12 of which were designed by Burn-Jones. Well worth a trip, as is the antiques shop in the lovely old church hall.

The meeting was interesting, too, but not as much as the rest of the day! Writing this in the airport: hope to be home by 2130 or so. Jo's been very coughy today, and very tired, and Willum's got cystitis, so the household's not very well, particularly as Moo and I are coming in third and fourth with annoying colds. Megan seems to be fine, at least.