Chatty Daffs

 Dear Marmite

I am writing to you from Newcastle - a city far north from where I live. I am with an old friend and we are heading for Scotland and a visit to Sammi. I left my little home just a couple of days ago and said good bye to all the spring bulbs that are now out and bursting into flower in my garden. Last year a dear friend gave me some tete-a-tete daffodils. These are mini ones and they are making a magificent show around the garden. I like to think of them as being chatty daffs!

In the hopes that the spring flowers will be superseded but the seeds I have sown, I carefully prepared lots of pots at the beginning of March. I have my fingers crossed that some will come up but I did catch an old crow pecking away and sending soil and compost in all directions. Who knows what he managed to snaffle. My new hobby will most probably involve an airgun - watch this space!

Now I am  in Newcastle and this is my first visit. My first impressions are very mixed. Once I had driven round the city centre three times just to find the hotel and carpark, I felt pretty much au fait with the layout. It is not particularly large but it is difficult to navigate by car. After a drive from up south just finding the hotel added another 40 minutes. I asked Ann to read her phone map and to look for street names. I didn't realise how difficult this would turn out to be. She needed one pair of glasses for the phone and another to read road signs. Swapping between the two proved a hurdle. Besides this, there were roadworks that google didn't know about - Hey Google - you know nothing! The satnav system seemed slow as well. We only got to our destination after phoning up the front desk. My nerves were pretty much in shreds by the time we got to the hotel room.

So here I am almost ready to hit the town for our second day. Yesterday afternoon and evening we explored - walked over bridges, had lunch and generally soaked up the atmosphere. Today we hit the art gallery and tonight, the theatre. So many shops are closed. The Eldon  Garden Shopping Centre tags itself as being inspirational. Not so! There is grafitti everywhere - and not the nice stuff, rubbish is strewn in every nook and sadly even in this cold, damp weather, people are sleeping on the street.

In contrast to this, the architecture is magnificent. The new and the old blend beautifully and the Quayside is a delight even in a nippy breeze and drizzle. There are advertising hoardings telling the locals what "levelling up" means to them. Despite all the construction going on, I feel there is a long way to go. 

The locals are a hardy lot. I know it is early spring but wearing flip flops, shorts, t-shirts and not much else is a pretty brave thing to do even down south. There are lots of locals who walk the streets dressed this way. You Marms, would need your fur coat for sure.

I have been on my soap box about all that is wrong with the world. I am going to offer a place to a stray Ukrainian. It is the least I can do. At home I am taking cold showers and not using the gas hob in protest to where my gas supply might be coming from. If I hadn't had my holiday booked for such a long time, I would have probably postponed it. Unfortunately I am travelling by car so I need to use petrol. I do have a pang of guillt even though I am enjoying the trip. 

So, as they say, onwards and upwards, the day lies ahead. Missing you laods,

Love

XXX