Dear sir, your Czech has been returned.
Our Czech friend, Helena, has made a return visit to the United Kingdom this week so I have not been out walking with the lads. I'm not sure they have been out walking either as some are still on holiday and some have family events to attend.
I am entertaining our guest and this blog is a free advert for some of the places worth a visit in the north east of England.

Saturday August 16th.
Although Helena has seen the Roman Wall before I decided to take her to Housesteads, the fort on the wall itself and known to the Romans as Vercovicium or Vercovicivm to be precise. An English Heritage /National Trust site, therefore entry is free to members of those organisations and £5.80 to concessions like us. The car park is £4 for the day but you can pay with a credit card and even better, you can use the ticket at any of the National Trust car parks along the wall.
There is a museum/visitor centre selling serious books about the wall, fun books about the wall, plastic swords and armour and essentials like chocolate. Plus a lot of pressure to join the National trust and display the sticker on your car to show you like a bit of culture.
A Roman soldier, Flavius Monthius, in full kit with pilus and gladius announced he would be giving a short talk on life on the wall if we would like to accompany him to the fort itself, so we did.

                                          Flavius has a little trouble with his helmet, it was a windy day.
Flavius was pretty good, describing how, although in the army, he had spent a lot of his time building the wall, drinking local beers and carousing with the local women. He gave a demonstration of a one man, Roman style, tortoise with his shield and explained clearly the use of the Roman short sword, used mainly for thrusting in very close combat. The pilus was thrown but the head then broke off to prevent the enemy returning it. Crafty Romans, what have they ever done for us?

 The foundations of the grain store at Housesteads, underfloor heating kept the supplies dry.

                                                The wall near Steel Rigg.

The best bit of the wall, Crag Lough taken from

Steel Rigg. The wall runs along the cliff edges, almost.

Leaving Housesteads we drove to Steel Rigg.We walked a short way along the wall but it was very windy so we moved on, or back, to Brocolitia to have a look at the Mithraum there. Mithras was a favourite with the soldiers, his temples were small and on a windy day probably best examined in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

From the wall we went to Hexham, ancient market town and site of a fine Abbey. Much of it is recycled stone from the wall, it has Saxon origins (c675), was sacked by the Danes  in 876 and rebuilt by Augustinians in 1113. It is dedicated to St Andrew, of course it has a visitors shop selling serious books, fun books and serious ice cream.

In the evening we went to see an open air production of Pride and Prejudice performed by Heartbreak Productions in Jesmond Dene. Five actors/actresses performed all parts with much gusto and costume changes. They were brilliant, Mr. Darcy emerged from the audience looking damp, just like Colin Firth. Mr Wilkins was hilarious and Lizzy got her man. Mrs B swooned, screamed and worried. Great night and it only rained twice. The woman in front of me insisted on taking lots of photos and videos on her ipad thing, why can't she just watch the play?

Outside and inside views of Hexham Abbey. The font, out of view is possibly a Roman Bowl.

We were shown round by a very kind and helpful guide whose accent was a bit too much for Helena.

Sunday August 17th.

In the morning we paid a visit to "Northumberlandia", the worlds largest earth form. A  vast work just outside Cramlington this fairly new attraction consists of a rather big girl. She was built from the stone and earth extracted from the nearby Shotton Opencast Mine. She has several miles of paths to walk and from her head there are good views towards the sea, the airport and the Cheviots, plus the Shotton Mine. Northumberlandia has a visitor centre which sells a few souvenirs and refreshments, none of them serious.

                                       View from the top of Northumbria's head.

                                            The mine from which she came

                                                   Northumberlandia, sleeping goddess.

In the afternoon Helena went shopping in Newcastle, my wife and I went to watch Newcastle United lose to Manchester City, but they played well and have a shop.

Monday August 18th.

Today's trip was to Durham. There is very little I can add in praise of this World Heritage site. The cathedral, which houses the tomb of St. Cuthbert and also of the Venerable Bede, is a must for anyone coming to the north east of England. Climb the central tower and look over the town, county and prison. Gaze at the cloisters that stood in for Hogwarts. Find the mistake,(hint; it's on a pillar in the south transept). And enjoy the visitor centre which has really, really serious books, fun books, souvenirs and a small restaurant, plus a Lego model of the cathedral under construction.

 Durham Cathedral, World Heritage Site and so it should be.

                                            Helena reaches out to hold the sanctuary knocker 

                                         and claim 37 days of grace to prove her innocence.

Moving on from the Cathedral we visited the Durham Heritage museum in an old church on North Baileyjust behind the cathedral. Originally the parish church of St. Mary le Bow (why does anybody need a church so close to the cathedral?) it now houses a display of life in Durham. Photographs of mining villages, a replica of a prison cell and a mock up of a 1940s kitchen with poss tub and wash board! Great but no shop.

Tuesday August 19th

By Metro to St. Peter's Church at Monkwearmouth across the river from Sunderland centre. This church is one of the oldest in England,  Built about 673 by Benedict Biscop, sacked by the Vikings, neglected for years, covered partly in ballast from ships in the Wear,  the west tower is the only part left of the original building. Our guide, another with an accent difficult for Helena to follow, showed us a Saxon lead coffin with toes! We went through the tower, in the footsteps of St Benedict, the Venerable Bede who started his career here before moving on to St. Peter's at Jarrow, and possibly St. Cuthbert and St. Wilfred. No shop though.

                                                Saxon Tower at St. Peter's

                                                 Carving in the tower, possibly a heron

                                              The Victorian ceiling in the church, badly

                                              damaged in 1984 by an arsonist but carefully

                                                    restored.

Crossing the bridge we visited the Sunderland Glass Museum, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.  In the glass museum we watched a demonstration of glass blowing, remarkable but hot work.

All glass

                                               Art outside Sunderland Museum

                                                       A tree on the riverside

Bananas

                                                                                                                                                         Not surprisingly the museum reflects the industry of Wearside, ship- building, engineering, glass making and, of course, mining. The Winter Gardens are a mini version of one of the hot houses at Kew with banana trees and a whole variety of plants fro foreign climes. And there is a shop for souvenirs and serious books too, plus a cafe. And it's free! (The museum that is)

Wednesday, August 20th

In the morning the ladies went shopping in Marks and Spencers, as ladies do. In the afternoon we went to the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle. (£5,80 for concessions, free parking)

The  museum was built by the Bowes family in the 19th century to house their collection of Arts and Crafts. Built in the style of a French Chateau its star attraction is the Silver Swan, an automaton which is wound up at 2pm everyday and performs. Totally mechanical and beautifully made it is the centre piece in a hall which also contains works by Canaletto. (Yes Venice) There are rooms devoted to painting, including a display of the art of the Pitmen Painters. There are rooms devoted to porcelain and china from around the world, although mostly France and Germany but three pieces from Bohemia, mistakenly labelled slovakia on the cabinet. Look carefully and you can see that Czech has been cleaned off, leaving the other half with a lower case letter. And of course there is a shop selling serious books, fun books and other souvenirs. 

                                                        The famous silver swan

                                                     Bowes Museum

Thursday August 21

 I drove Helena to Leeds where we met Graham, her host for the next few days. He and his family took her to Knaresborough and Sutton Bank before handing her over to his parents in Durham where I picked her up on Sunday August 24th. Next day was going home day after a good holiday, I hope.

Durham Coastal Footpath   August 8th
This is a Ronseal* walk, it is exactly what it says in the title.
The holidays have taken their toll of gadgies, only three of us are out today, John, Dave and I. We have chosen to follow the Durham Heritage Coastal Path from Seaham to Crimdon, walking along a well marked route, much of it a National Nature Reserve with several sites of Special Scientific Interest.
It is a linear walk so should you follow it you need a car at both ends, or you can use buses as we did.
I took the metro from Jesmond in Newcastle to Sunderland railway station where I met the other two.

                                           Jesmond Metro Station, in lieu of a car park

Yes, a station.

We walked the few streets to the Sunderland Bus Station, (no picture, sorry) and caught the 60 bus to Seaham where the walk starts.
In the 19th and 20th centuries Durham had a large coalfield, several on this stretch of coast. The pits were closed by the 1990s. When the pits were in operation colliery waste was tipped onto the beaches. See the film Get Carter  for an idea of how grim it was. Once the pits were closed a regeneration programme was put in place."Turning the Tide" and the pit heaps are now restored to natural grassland and the beaches have been cleared and cleaned.
The walk; (Brian warned us there was a lot of ups and downs) You can do this walk without a map as it is well marked, but should you want one OS Explorer 308 covers all but the last mile into Crimdon. Better still try and acquire a copy of the booklet "The Durham Heritage Coastal Footpath" published by Durham County Council. A difficult publication to find but very informative. My copy is available for hire.
Officially the walk starts at Seaham Hall Beach, north of the town, but we got off the bus by the harbour and saved ourselves about half a mile.

                                               The start at Seaham, almost a car park.
(If you start at Seaham Hall Beach you pass the Seaham Time Line, artworks illustrating the history of the area, and a statue of the Marquess of Londonderry who was responsible for the creation of the harbour.)

                                  Seaham Harbour, Durham.
Shortly after having passed the harbour we spotted a signpost leading us to the footpath proper. Soon we came to the site of Dawdon Colliery. Information boards indicated the site of the pit and also provided some indication of the geology of the area on wooden posts with short poems. Dedicated to Bill Griffiths, author of at least two books on the language of the north east: A Dictionary of the North East Dialect and Pitmatic; the talk of the North East Coalfield. Both fascinating works. There are also a number of benches suitable for Herbie Spots, but it was too early, even for us. The frequency of benches diminished with distance.
The imposing cliffs are Magnesium Limestone, topped with boulder clay which has allowed for rich grasslands and a colourful collection of wild flowers lining the footpath all the way to Crimdon, almost. A home for insects too, and possibly small mammals as we saw several kestrels hovering on the cliffs. The beach below is called Blast Beach, presumably as there was once an ironworks in the area, nearby Noses Point was an industrial site too.

                                                    One of the information boards, they became fewer                                                                     the further  south we walked.
                                                

Magnesium Limestone cliffs

Soon we came to Hawthorn Dene. Nearby the Pemberton family had their own private railway station, at this point the footpath runs alongside the railway track. We took the option of walking round the dene rather than along the cliff tops and called a halt beneath Beacon Hill, sitting on a lonely bench with a splendid sea view for lunch. Dave, disappointingly, had nothing to offer but John provided Chocolate flapjacks and I produced the last of the bars of Czech chocolate.

Moving on we came to Easington, another colliery village which no longer has its pit, although the cage remains as a local landmark. South of Easington we walked round Foxholes Dene, moving some way inland before returning to the cliff tops. The dene did look deep, we should have taken it as an omen.

The next ex colliery is Horden, its site reclaimed  by tons of colliery waste from the beach, allowing the creation of more grasslands. Beyond we reached the first up and downer, Warren House Gill, a steep path down into the dene, followed by a steep stepped climb up the other side.

                                                     More magnesium limestone in a dene

                                               One of several viaducts on the walk

Looking south towards Hartlepool and Teesside

Whitesides Gill was relatively easy but Blackhills gill was a little more challenging . Somewhere in this area we met a party who were setting out a walk, or run, putting direction signs at junctions and adding a few encouraging signs too. "Come on Everybody", "Almost there" and so on.

Denemouth took us briefly onto the beach before another stepped climb but Blue House Gill, near Blackhall Colliery site was a walk round affair. Back on the cliff tops, although they were lower now, we followed the blue and yellow markers to Crimdon.

                                                          Laminated too!

              The path is well marked with yellow arrows, occasional acorns signifying a long distance

                path.

  The final dene was also very steep, a footpath, with stiles, led to a climb down followed by steps leading up again.

                                                             Pretty smart stile

                                                               Steeper than they look, there were 54

                     Finally we walked round the small town that is Crimdon Holiday Park, went under the railway and waited approximately five minutes for a bus to Sunderland.

                                                Crimdon Holiday Park

From Sunerland we took the Metro to Newcastle and called into Wetherspoons pub the Milecastle for some well kept Abbott Ale, or Ruddles in John's case.

THE MATRIX MMXIV

                                                               steps                             miles

LIDL3D                                                23016                           10.33

Dave's LIDL 3D                                    25706                          13.38

Dave's LIDL USB                                 25138                           13.09

GPS                                                                                            10.5

Measured                                                                                    13!

Booklet reckons 11 miles from start to finish, but quite hard miles. 

Gadgie distance 319

For both maps:Contains OS data, copyright. Crown copyright and database right 2014

* Ronseal. Protective paints for woodwork, The advertising slogan is

"Does exactly what it says on the tin" 

I can see Deirdre now, Lorraine has gone    Aug 1st
 I was unable to join the gadgies for a walk this Friday as I spent the morning In the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne for a cataract operation. And to those readers in the UK who complain about the NHS I would just say I have nothing but praise for the all staff in Ward 21 at that hospital. From the first greeting, through the preliminary chat and then the operation which lasted thirty minutes from being wheeled in to the theatre to being wheeled out, followed by an excellent cup of tea and discharge, everybody was friendly, cheerful and thoroughly professional. Mind you the surgeon, a young lady, looked about 19 years old. Thank you all.

 I have had this report on the gadgie walk:
  "Four gadgies, Brian, Dave, John and Harry, did the John Martin Trail. It rained gently at the beginning and at the end. In between it rained very heavily indeed, all the time, without let up."
At least I think that' what they meant.
The John Martin trail is a good walk and has been covered at least twice so if you want to know it or refresh your memory try:
  A Happy nook where the willows grow    13/4/13
or
 Martin in the Fields     5/5/12
Normal service next week.