Fri 5 – Sun 7 June 2015
After moving out of Newcastle, the city we had fondly called home for the best part of 5 years, we spent 3 weeks with family in Carlisle and the Lake District. The question remained, which lovely place should be the first stop on our grand European adventure? Newcastle of course!
As we didn’t get to have a proper goodbye to Newcastle (packing the flat was a little more than hectic!), we decided we needed to go back. We invited ourselves round to our friends’ Clara and Tom’s place to spend one last night in the city we’d grown to love – on the airbed we had given them before we left. After some celebratory birthday drinks with Clara and friends and an interesting sleep – one that had a feeling one was on a sinking ship – we awoke and had a delicious brunch at the Butterfly Cabinet in Heaton, a Newcastle neighborhood. A quick ‘so long’ and hugs and we crawled into our overly packed silver, 2005 Hyundai Accent and hit the open road, over the Tyne Bridge and down to Lincoln to visit Matt’s high school friend, Ross.
We arrived in Lincoln in the late afternoon and had a quick poke around the high street (saw Chewie) and the Cathedral, which was not quite as good as Durham we felt, but we are a bit bias! Ross was promoting a music event that night so we caught up with him at the Scene. The gig was great and we had a brilliant night of catching up that lasted til the wee hours of the morning.
After sleeping much of the next day away, we enjoyed our first taste of warm sunshine in what felt like a very long time. Who knew that only a 3 hour drive south of Newcastle we would find the beginnings of summer – it was only early June after all! We spent the afternoon chatting with Ross and his lovely parents, Paul and Carol, who then fed us an amazing bbq for dinner. We finished off the visit in the traditional English way…a quick pint (or two) at Ruskington’s local pub, the Shoulder of Mutton – charming name.
Purple Moose Tales 