Location, Vocation, Vacation

Location
Where you live has never become so important over the last few months with the changes in our life. The good weather makes you appreciate your location even more. Like you would on holiday, you can take yourself and all off to the beach and get there in about 2 minutes. With a babba on a trike, an old man like me pushing it in flip-flops with the Mrs in tow making sure her massive sunglasses don't slip off. It's a sight to see, the locals can look like tourists.

Vocation
Some people have seized the moment well. What with the rising attraction of beach life and street food, Riley's Fish Shack have brought the two together. He basically sets up at King Edward's Bay and cooks local fish on his large BBQ. We tried a salmon wrap, it was delicious. We ate it while we watched a Karate group practise on the beach. Now you don't see that often.

Vacation
So all of this good weather and our location have made it feel like we are on holiday. The sun shines, the sea is clear and green, the temperature rises, drinks in the village or city (see that lush lass in the photo). Sometimes you even get the smell of bins and a fat Geordie with a tattoo spelt backwards. Like on holiday, you learn to hold your nose or turn your head and just get on with stuffing your face with chips, ice-creams and wraps and then realise that you are also a fat Geordie on holiday.

It's a Park, in the centre of things

I've never been bothered about a trip to Centre Parcs. It's got an expensive label, but when we were offered the chance to go on a family break there we said yes and went along to see if it is actually a park (with a c of course) in the centre. I can confirm that there is a park and it's more or less in the centre of Whinfelll Forest.


Once you have navigated through the complex road system and you haven't managed to end up lost, facing backwards inside your own car or on top of a cyclist you can be pleasantly surprised by the plush log cabins and the beauty of the forest.


In the place you will find a plethora of activities. The big ones like Go Ape, obstacle courses, scary rope things, zip wire craziness you need to book at least 25 years in advance. However the indoor and outdoor sports arena has all sorts of sporty things to get into such as badminton, tennis, table tennis, footy, golf, water sports and everything else you can think of. Great for kids. Great for fat families too, as they convince themselves they are on a healthy holiday.


The resident animals there must have a great time. There was a duck in the human swimming pool; clearly they're not arsed about their own lake, but who could blame them when there's such a great water slide. The red squirrels also show their little cute faces from time to time, I snapped this one going up a tree. Now when I say snapped. please don't be phoning the RSPCA, I didn't actually snap its neck or anything, I just took an innocent photo and it went on its way to crack some nuts or whatever they do. It got me thinking about those films made some time ago where the squirrels complete obstacle courses to get their nuts. Now I can't get the Mission Impossible music out my head...

Nothing is real anymore

 Even Bono was there

Kings of Lyon

Now us men are all used to having things being faked around us. It was no different when we went along to the Tynemouth Fake Festival. The acts included:


Kings of Lyon
Really Hot Chilli Peppers
Coldplace


Basically, they rip off the real bands and call themselves tribute acts. Some clever bloke thought he could make a business out of this and so provides food, beer, music and a nice big marquee. We got to see Kings of Lyon but decided to miss out on the others as it got a bit cold even though the sun was out. Guess that's a sign of old age, even for Andrea.

Bono ditches glasses and raises one

The other festival a week later wasn't a fake. It was the second year for the Tynemouth Food Festival. We started it off attending David Kennedy's pop-up restaurant in the canteen in the local private school. I'm sure the kids are used to top food here too.

Also, not so fake was the massive orange I picked up from one of stalls owned by a french man. What a large orange I said to him in french. I think it was lost in translation.

A small apple or a huge orange?

Going out on a limo

It was my cousin's stag 'do' the other week. Now we all know they can be eventful, but this one was particularly lively. The agenda was simple; a race day and a night out. It's been done before without too much drama and humiliation.


The morning involved bacon sandwiches, champagne and some other weird drink while travelling to the Lingfield races in Surrey in a limo recently seen in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Now you might think that is impressive but not when we stopped at the services on the way down and were inspected by the Vehicle police. After an hour or so of checking the vehicle it was decided that they would allow us to travel but the limo would be impounded once we got into London later that night as the company did not have an operators licence for that vehicle. The sun was shining and we had beer so it was part of the day out. Oh how we all laughed, especially when my Uncle split his ring. Now I didn't know how else to put that, but he did legitimately split his wedding ring somehow so that it started to pinch his skin and blow his finger up. The strange noises attracted a lot of attention as did the 12 men wearing suits standing outside a limo with a bottle of beer laughing at the man shouting "Meee ring...I've split meee ring".


We did manage to get to the races just in time only to be greeted by Judy Dench (nicknamed The Dench for the rest of the day). She smiled and waved at us, she had no choice really. My cousin, the stag, looked great in his Paul Shane style jacket and 80's wig. Infact there were some people at the races who dressed like that anyway so he wasn't out of place. After winning nothing, being the centre of attraction for the day, swallowing several pints and hog roasts it was time to leave and travel into London in our questionable limo. This was to become an interesting journey...


So, we were on the way to London, beer in the limo, a foreign driver who had no idea his boss didn't have an operators licence and someone needed a wee. The traffic was building as we approached London, the wee sack was building too. It was someones idea to jump out the back of the limo and empty themselves into some nearby bushes on the roadside while onlookers tried to establish if the men in suits were stars or The Unusual Suspects. It must've looked funny to see the suits running desperately behind the limo to the chants of "Run Forest Run" to catch up to it as the traffic started to move.

The earlier events of the day meant that the limo was being watched as we got closer into London and were escorted to Tiger Tiger by police motorbikes. Now this wasn't a problem for us as we were then treated like real stars. Forget The Dench, we were famous. We were papped, and I don't mean we needed the toilet again. The London public got excited. There was talk of One Direction being in the limo. But there was massive confusion when we all got out the limo wearing James Corden masks. After laughing along with the policeman we went into Tiger Tiger, ate our VIP food, drank various cocktails and invented James Corden dance moves.


The limo drama continued when it turned up an hour late at 3am in the morning and then couldn't find its way to our destinations via the sat-nav. So the driver got frustrated, so much so he rather unprofessionally slammed the brakes on so we all tumbled forward in true crash drama style. We weren't happy by this attitude as most of us were asleep and my gymnastics meant that my feet ending up in someones face. The good thing, no-one was hurt and the stag had a fun packed story to remember for the future. The limo company is currently being chased for all of its failings...so maybe we'll hear of it again in the news or a Channel 4 documentary or the death of its gypsy passengers.

Public whipping

The last time I visited Glasgow was for my birthday but I looked forward to going again to be best man for my round-glassed mate Andy and make him safe during his stag do. Not much planning needed from me really as the groom with the clipboard and military itinerary had everything under control, even the statistics of preferred lap-dancers.

Off the train, to the hotel to change into our costumes which consisted of fruit-pastel coloured jockey T-Shirts and hats. It felt good to look ridiculous since the last time I dressed up but I was glad I wasn't the groom as he had the full jockey outfit on including whip and boots. I'm pretty sure he already had the whip and boots, he seemed so comfortable in them. A confident man in boots. I suppose anyone carrying a whip will have confidence, even his walk was very much in the style of a man with a purpose.

So in all our glory we trotted off to Ayr races to win absolutely bot-all on the horses. It didn't matter as it was such a good laugh, becoming the centre of attraction for all the ladies wishing to get their photos taken and caress Andy's whip. It's amazing how those ladies managed to actually look more like the horses than the horses running.

A few drinks later it was time to go straight to the Glasgow night life and see if we could understand any Scottish accents at the Comedy Club. The Scottish accent is just one big blur and even more so under the influence so most people resorted to sign-language and shouting. Infact some people from other groups did a lot of shouting and talking during the comedian performances. They were slowly told to leave over a period of about an hour through heckling and basic put downs from the stand up. We all agreed they were arseholes by clapping them out of the venue.

Without the costumes this time we still got noticed. It must have been the 15 jam-jar glasses we all wore. Towards the end of the night things seemed much easier in those glasses, the world made more sense. Passers-by didn't judge you for looking disabled. I put this down to the fact that a lot of hard-nosed Glaswegians do actually look retarded. For that reason I felt as comfortable as Andy did wearing his long black slender boots.

Overall a great time and great way to celebrate. Being best man meant I could call all the shots though I'm not one to make a fool of the groom, he managed that himself.

Eshott, it's in earshot

I almost forgot to blog what was my birthday treat a few weeks ago. It was a surprise, a tradition for birthdays in the household. We went for a weekend, not too far away, to Eshott Hall in Northumberland. A pretty romantic place if you fancy taking your woman, man or mother-in-law there. It's recently been refurbished, is an amazing place with a pretty impressive hallway and bedrooms. The food as always was another reason for our stay there and it was pretty lush, we ate there both nights. The chef showed off a few times with an Irn-Bru sorbet palette cleanser, and some fantastic meat and game dishes.

We managed to visit Warkwarth Castle, brave the strong winds on their beach and take a look around Alnwick. There were lots of people on the streets and shops talking about the Royals coming to Alnwick that day. I thought they were talking about Ricky Tomlinson and Caroline Ahern but it turns out that Kate thingyboby who Prince William is marrying has a sister who was getting married there that day. Yawn.

Back at the hall, was such a good choice by the girlfriend, hope she gets it right next year too. No pressure.

When I'm cleaning burgers

We get some pretty good days when the sun is out in Tynemouth, you don't need to be abroad. We were lucky to be at the rowing club Ukulele BBQ on the beach. Sounds weird, and it was a bit odd. 10 players playing the mini instruments which look like guitars that have been in a hot wash. Being played in sync gave a few funny looks from passers by. We tried to request a Lady Ga Ga hit but they weren't having any of it. Being a competent musician myself (cough) I got to play one too, and found it quite easy as it's similar to the last 4 strings on a guitar. I did feel a bit like an elephant playing with a cherry on a cocktail stick though. We had a performance from local girl Anna Leigh who did well to sing in the hot sunshine and the smoke from the BBQ.

I also got the chance to parade my award winning Sundried Tomato and Pine Nut burgers. People flocked from all over to taste them, even the seagulls. The same seagulls that decided to swoop down nearby for a piece of chicken and in the process dropped a few shit parcels in our pints, and on my shirt. It brings a new meaning to the phrase 'shit shirt'.