A Northern Christmas

Spent my Christmas in a small ex-mining village called Greenside (part of Ryton village) outside of Newcastle, not urban and not rural, it's increasingly becoming a sort of commuter suburb after the local farms have all been remodelled into character residences and the last vestiges of small industry closed years ago. It makes a nice occasional change from London.

I was only there for a few days because of work but went shopping in Newcastle one day, and at the Metro Centre. Fenwicks windows are always a 'must see' but this year were a bit disappointing - the theme was the Snowman so the windows just showed a few scenes of a snowman and a lad in dressing gown. The Snowman wasn't even very fat. Not all that festive in my view!

Christmas was a lazy day with me full of cold so I didn't eat or drink too much at all or even as much as I'd hoped! All those missed opportunities to guzzle grub and hooch, all gone...

Boxing Day was a trip into Northumberland to the freezing North Sea coast and the opportunity to jeer at the swimming club idiots who take pride in going into the freezing sea for a Boxing Day swim. Why do they do that? It makes me even colder just to watch.

Then went to little bro's (Derek and Tracy's) for victuals and an endless flood of alcohol. The number of bottles they received as Christmas presents and proudly displayed under the tree was disgusting ... ok, it's true, I'm jealous! Became addicted to the 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' DVD game at little bro's (that I also got for Christmas). We kept getting to the million pound question (and the opportunity to win a luxury holiday, no less) and kept getting the wrong answer. Drat. Must've been all the guinness, sherry and JD I was forced to drink... I *will* get that million pound question right if only to see what happens next!

Woke up to snow on the ground this morning (Tuesday), packed ready for the trip back to London. Snow on the ground most of the way down and was then greeted by a snow shower when I walked along from Kings Cross to the Thameslink station to find that, 'due to adverse weather conditions' trains were cancelled... How come some trains were cancelled but others could get through? I don't understand that. It's not as if there was any snow on the ground either.