Arcticterntalk.org

Northumberland

So much news to update that it is difficult to know where to start, so will work backwards over last 2 weeks.
Just back from a week away, mixture of work and holiday. Was up in Harrogate for a psychiatric congress that is always good fun. Get to meet colleagues and do some work and have a few drinks…………however there is a good chance that I halved the average age in Harrogate. I came down for breakfast the first morning and it seemed the whole world had gone grey overnight. Some great little snippets of conversation like a lady asking another, using the same intonation as you might ask ” more tea vicar?”…………asking ” more medication dear?”……
I travelled up by train which was actually quite fun. The train from Kings Cross was packed even on a sunday and allegedly was going all the way to Inverness,8 hours worth of train. In fact at its first stop, York, which suited me as that was where I was getting off, they said “all change”! Cue, grumblings and moaning…..
The next train a cross country train to Harrogate, actually looked like, sounded like and was about the size of a bus. It also went to stations that sounded like they came straight out of Camberwell Green. Try Poppleton,Starbecks………
Anyway Harrogate was lovely, weather warmish and the congress was really good. All against my iniitial expecatations. Took a little trip to Brimham Rocks, an amazing place where one climbs over these prehistoric looking rock formations. Some of the children there was performing death defying leaps between rocks with no parents in site…….I took Tea at Betty’s, an old fashioned tea shop, where the waitresses all look like they came from Upstairs Downstairs or a Jane Austen novel. Tea and cakes are nice, really nice, but not cheap and one might want to remove a few noughts from the bill. Then up to Newcastle way and that allowed a last trip of the year over to the Farne Islands. All the birds had gone really with only a few stragglers left. Saw 2 puffins on Inner Farne Island and they have stopped landing on Staple Island as all the birds have gone. The Arctic Terns were even good natured, or as good natured as they will ever get. The news from there is that they have had 36,000 pairs of breeding puffins this year, same as last year, one pair of swallows (?) and 9 pairs of Mallards…………
Drove back down this afternoon. A mere 350 miles on a friday evening, meeting lots of roadworks and traffic. Took around 7 hours of driving.
Brentford have continued to do well in all their friendlies, beating two non-league teams away 10-0 and 6-1, beating Stoke at home 1-0 and drawing 0-0 with Watford. This is so encouraging that I am going to see Aldershot v Brentford friendly tomorrow! So some photos may appear…….
the only bad news was that arrived home to find that someone is trying to sue Yasmin for an accident in 2006. Yasmin was stationary when hit from behind and shunted forward to hit the car in front. It seems that a little creativity has been applied to this story and a claim for almost 3K. Hmmm…….will be an interesting court case if it ever reaches there. Will take advice from eldest most-legal daughter, who has been out-argiung me for almost 30 years. And a law degree as well……