So...it is time for me to write briefly of the sad saga of our rather disastrous Newcastle holiday! We went up to Newcastle because a) I was going to attend a talk there, and b) we thought we'd see the sites for a couple of days, mostly Hadrian's Wall, which I've been to before, but I was excited to see it again and to go with Trav. Anyway, so we set off last Saturday with high hopes...

We got there Saturday night and decided to just take it easy and not do much of anything since we'd have a couple of days yet (LITTLE DID WE KNOW...duh duh duh). We did make it down to a McDonald's, where Emrys proceeded to be more photogenic in the space of about five minutes than he has been for the entirety of his life up to this point, basically. Look at him! He's like a Gerber baby wannabe. Looking at this picture now I already look like I'm wasting away, but that may be because I know now what was coming...at the time I felt fine.

There is now a large gap in the pictorial record because, alas, I woke up the Sunday morning feeling like crap - I'd been nauseated most of the night. I managed to drag my bedraggled self to the lecture (where I had a ginger cookie and tea and felt slightly better and also an awful lot like someone out of an Agatha Christie novel! [note to the unaware: characters in her books are always reviving themselves on tea and biscuits, basically]). On the way back to the hotel I called Travis, who said he was feeling sick. This basically launched us on two and a half days of complete misery. I was somewhat better after 24 hours but Trav had it bad the whole time. Poor guy.

So in the end we spent most of the holiday being sick in the hotel room (at least it was really a very very nice hotel room) and emerging mostly to go buy more medicines. Emrys was basically losing his mind stuck in the hotel room with two ailing parents. He crawled around and around the room, wildly angsty and flopping angrily off the walls. For awhile he amused himself in the bathroom until I decided that allowing him to play with toilet brushes was really an un-called for level of negligent parenting. Eventually, since I was doing much better than Trav at that point, I took him out in his backpack for a walk, and we managed to find a section of the old city walls. They were built around 1300.

The last day we were there - Monday afternoon - Trav very valiantly came out for a walk with us and we made it up to the castle, which is mostly from about 1300 in its surviving form, I believe, but it lies on the same spot that the Romans built their fort when they first came to the area, and Anglo-Saxon and Norman castles were on the same spot as well. So it's a very historically well-occupied site (just the way I like 'em :)).

Em and me on the way to the castle.

I like this picture, but if there is one thing it teaches me, it is that if I want to get away with darker hair I had better (finally) learn to wear make-up. Could I look pastier? The answer is no, no I could not.
These are the handiest things ever, for the record.

Entrance to the castle!
Inside one of the private rooms of the castle - they called it The Queen's Chamber but I am rather doubtful that they had any actual evidence that it was the queen's. But it would have been the private room of one of the high-and-mighty's, at least. They have redecorated it to show what the furniture etc. might have looked like.
In the 'basement' of the castle - it's not really certain what the room was originally used for, but during WWII it was used as an air raid shelter! They've put a bunch of random statues and inscriptions that used to be around the castle in various places, down here - like a mini museum I guess. Bud and I are standing beside a (now headless) figure of a soldier that used to stand up on the parapet of the city walls - they would be grouped in twos all along the wall, the plaque said. I'm not sure if this was to make it look, from a distance, like there were always men on guard, or whether it was just for decoration. Cool either way though.
Em is not especially moved by history, it seems. YET.
View from the top of the castle, looking east. This river (the Tyne) runs a few miles east from here into the sea.
Looking...north, I think?
Yes, I think my kid is pretty cute.
Going down the steepest street evah!

Pics from the train ride home - this is just south of Newcastle.

Poor Trav was still feeling gross at this point, but was a trooper.
Durham!
These next few I took specifically to show you and Ed, Mom. Doesn't it look like Saskatchewan?Trav and I were both really struck by the resemblance...
Especially here!
AND HERE! Seriously, you'd think we were driving Highway 16. :) It was kind of awesome.
Em was pretty good on the train ride home...
...but he was VERY happy to be home! I think his mood here speaks for how we all felt, haha.

And then we slept. Alot. The end.

Whew, made it to the end! xo Becky