Although the cherry blossom trees were not playing the game, there were other bits of coloured flora and the like, so we took photo’s of what we found. All these are taken with my Contax Aria and Cinestil 400 film.
purpley bluebells
These are called Glory-of-the-snow in English apparently, but in this case it was glory-of-the-rain
Scilla luciliae (Boiss,) Speta.
Daffodils were abundant, especially on this bank on the edge of the park where they were joined by bluebells
Daffs
The white blossom trees were not being so tardy
Spring Cherry tree
Sour Cherry tree
I love the wiggles of this tree
Corkscrew Hazel
We had a wander over the road where there’s a large cemetery
Oak Tree I think
When I was a little girl I won a competition for growing a Hyacinth and had my picture in the local paper, the Huddersfield Examiner. Nothing to do with the outing here except this grave full of them reminded me of my moments of Warholian fame.
Hyacinthical Grave.
I like Grape Hyacinths too and there were some!
Grape Hyacinthical Grave
I do like this statue of the Madonna, which seems unusual to me. All the graves here are of the Crolla family, but try as I might I can’t find out much about these particular ones, but they are obviously of Italian origin and I did find out the following ~
Italians came to the Uk to escape poverty and starvation in Italy when their farming communities were tore apart by war and famine. Their journey was supposed to take them to America but they liked it just fine here so quite a few families stayed in the UK. The first wave of arrivals was in the early 1800’s the second wave around the early 1870’s. Upon arriving in London they worked their way up north using two trades usually selling ice cream in the summer and musicians in the winter when the ice cream trade was at a low.
Madonna and the Crollas
And that’s the end of our revisit, stay tooned for wherever we go next.
Here is the round up of some pictures I took this week, and what they’re all about. Because I was late last week and posted on the Bank Holiday, this week started properly on Tuesday. As usual, a work day didn’t bring about many photo ops, but I got to sit in my fave place and take a couple of quickies whilst I had a coffee break.
Peace & Tranquility
view from the car
serenity
all taken with my samsung phone with the VSCO app and different filters applied. I could sit here all day really! Wednesday I forgot to take one, but was a pretty meh kind of day anyhow. Thursday was a better day as I did a couple of sales, but I still didn’t take a shot, must try harder. 😀
So Friday came, and my hub says do you fancy a trip into Newcastle ( our nearest town) as he had to take his car in for brake fixing and stuff and had a couple of hours to kill. So off we went, and I took my iphone to show the blog all around Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I don’t go th ere often enough and it’s my main town. It has some beautiful architecture and statues, and is about the coolest city I’ve ever been to. So here we go, welcome to The Toon!
Firstly the very tall statue of Charles Grey, Earl Grey 2nd, who was a big deal up here.
Grey’s Monument
the inscription reads as follows-
“THIS COLUMN WAS ERECTED IN 1838
TO COMMEMORATE
THE SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS COUNTRY BY CHARLES EARL GREY K.G.
WHO, DURING AN ACTIVE POLITICAL CAREER OF
NEARLY HALF A CENTURY
WAS THE CONSTANT ADVOCATE OF PEACE
AND THE FEARLESS AND CONSISTENT CHAMPION OF
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
HE FIRST DIRECTED HIS EFFORTS TO THE AMENDMENT
OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE IN 1792,
AND WAS THE MINISTER
BY WHOSE ADVICE, AND UNDER WHOSE GUIDANCE,
THE GREAT MEASURE OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
WAS AFTER AN ARDUOUS AND PROTRACTED STRUGGLE
SAFELY AND TRIUMPHANTLY ACHIEVED
IN THE YEAR 1832.”
which just about tells you what a great guy he was, and wish they still made them like that!
Eldon Square Shopping centre
nothing much to say about this except this is where you can shop indoors, like a USA mall I guess. But that geometric rooftop bit in the distance is St James Park, the home of Newcastle United Football team, which is a very big deal up here.
text break
This is where people sit to text, call, have a cuppa, reorganise their shopping bags etc, at the foot of the Greys Monument. In term time lunchtimes it’s heaving with students from the Uni.
The Golden Lady Clock
The Gold Lady Clock is on the corner of Pilgrim Street and Blackett Street, and is the symbol of the Northern Goldsmiths. Naked Lady statues are quite often found in Tyne & Wear, I’ll have to make a collection of them and do a post about them. Needless to say Northern chaps are a lusty lot. 😀
back alley
this is where my new clinic next week resides, it’s off to the right here, and I’ll no doubt take a pic of it on Tuesday when I go, but I like this little alley leading up to it, Newcastle has a lot of back alleys to explore.
strange guy
not sure what his game was! In Nirthumberland Street now which is a big shopping are up from the Monument, and where you also find people busking and doing weird stuff.
paint pot drummer
this guy was doing a great job of drumming on upside down paint pots, presumably empty. There’s been a youtube video of someone doing the same thing I think in America, so he’s obviously ‘borrowed’ the idea. He was really good though!
Phones 4u
I like the incongruous juxtaposition of old and new that happens in citys like this.
heads up
These heads and carvings were salvaged when the old library was demolished to make way for a new street. These are 7 gods and goddesses with Neptune in the centre (the chap gods look more like clergymen to me but hey ho, art is in the eye of the believer and all that) but I think it’s cool they kept the carvings and added them to the new retaining wall.
guitar man
Phil always likes to check out the guitar shop when he’s in town, and he needed a set of strings, so we got them and had a look around. While we were in the shop the call came through from the garage that the car was ready and we hotfooted it to the metro station, where we found 2 of the 3 potential men statues.
Potential 1
potential 2
didn’t have time to find the 3rd potential man but apparently it’s 3 views of the same man, I haven’t a bliddy clue what it’s all about but they were sculptured by Sean Henry who is (apparently) UK No.1 sculptor, so they must mean something. Hmmmm. 😀
So that’s Friday day, and at night my lovely hubby made a party for my birthday last weekend, as he’d missed it, and we had a lovely time,lots of wine & whisky and music and just the 2 of us.
Saturday we were ill.
Saturday night we had to go to a family bash as Phil’s neice’s daughter was 21 and had a party by the sea front, so we pulled ourselves together and made a good effort at being at the party. I took my polaroid so took some family pics to put on the wall when I finally get my photo board up!
View from the balcony of the Sundial.
Paul & Phil
Shelly & Karly
Phil’s daughter & daughter-in-law
Jan & Barry
Phils nephew and Mrs.
Carl,Karly,Steve,Shelley
Da Kidz.
Other Paul,Neil & Carl
Cousins and son-in-law
Carl,Neil & Karly
Neils face makes me laugh!
Today I went out taking pictures with my friend Sophie. We meet up a fair few times in the year and go off exploring somewhere, and I catalogue our adventures in my smugmug galleries so here is a selection from today. We went to Saltwell Park and Cemetery today ( we do like graves!) Saltwell park is a beautiful oasis in the middle of urban Gateshead, and has won many awards for it’s loveliness. It has a long & interesting history, which can be found on wiki .
As we left the car park, we got the first hint that summer is just about over and autumn is nearly upon us.
autumn to be
Salty Towers
Yes it’s called Saltwell Towers really.
Salty Towers side on.
The guy who had this built was a stained glass maker, not a single one in the building though.
on the lake
I love these bonkers peddle boats, must have a go on one next time.
duckletts
bottoms up
nothing more funny than a supposedly graceful swan upending to look for food.
Mr.Bolshy
This guy was in a really bad mood, chasing geese and generally swanning around being bolshy.
Mr.Bolshy, Tony’s edition
I remember Tony Single saying he didn’t have swans where he lives, and I was thinking he might like this dark contrast version.
ship ahoy cap’n
Love that this guy wears a Captains hat when playing with his model boat. 🙂 We soon found out he was in a model boat club competition just past the lake, so we went in and took pictures of course. We also had to vote on which ship we liked best.
Sophie shooting boats
Sophie shooting more boats
birdy
Saltwell also has a small wildlife section, with a few budgies and peacocks, but they are in cages, which saddens me always. Birds should be in the sky.
However hens can’t fly, and this one was ginormous!!This is his rear end 😀
fluffy bum
simbiosis
still some flowers left but not many left in the rose garden, which is quite stunning in bloom time.
Sophie Bomb
these are the flowers in the Tyne Bridge sculpture, and I took the shot just as Sophie walked past. We have a rule that we don’t take each other’s photo, but now and again we sneak one, and sometimes it’s accidental, but we also have a rule not to publish them. I don’t think we’re too good at sticking to the rules. Well I’m not anyway. 😀
Saltwell Dene
The Dene is a walk next to a rivulette with lush foliage and little waterfalls,and there’s a lovely twinkling silvery water sound while you walk around.
chocks away
So off to the cemetary over the road, and I managed to catch the magpie just as he took off.
baby graves
Saltwell Cemetary is HUGE! And quite modern, one of the most poignant sights was this section dedicated to little ones.
DIY or Robbing Graves??
This is such a crap shot but I only got the one chance before the lady saw me, and we could NOT work out what the heck they were doing. Speculation on burying their dog or digging for treasure.
Overseers
So thats it for this week, another long one, and now to get ready for work tomorrow. Phil’s on night shift boo hoo. Never mind, soon be the weekend 😀
fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe 
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