C2C 2011/ Stamina-building Tour of County Durham 2 - Chester Moor and Beyond...

This week I headed off in the other direction, to Chester Moor, about 6 miles away from our house, and where, again, I thought there were at least two pubs by way of a final destination. I knew I'd pass by Plawsorth, with its farm where you can pick soft fruit, advertised on the main road with a gigantic plastic strawberry. Ideal photo opportunity.

As is now threatening to become typical of this tour of County Durham, it's not there anymore.

So I carried on, and as I'd over-estimated the distance to Chester Moor and the gradient of the hill (modest), when I got there after about 20 minutes I thought that wasn't much of a trip, so I carried on toward Chester-le-Street. And that's when the day got (marginally) more interesting...

I spotted out of the corner of my eye down a dirt path a sign that looked very much like one for an amateur football club. Naturally curious, I pedalled down to find out more... ... and it was indeed an ad for Chester-le-Street Town, but with some disconcerting features: 1) The forthcoming fixture was for last August and, 2) The next match would require an early-morning kick-off - what, on police advice?! I know it's Birtley (suburb of Gateshead/Newcastle), but still...

So I cycled further down the path, in search of a football stadium that, possibly, had been last used in the previous summer. And I encountered a decrepit, seemingly derelict 'ghost ground', as if it had been abandoned and left for Nature to reclaim.

Well, that's what I thought, but a cursory Google search reveals - come on, admit it, you're curious - that they won 2-0 at home last week (by the looks of it, the boy Davison is in a rich vein of form), in front of a crowd of 48.

At first I thought they might play elsewhere - could they have grown out of this stadium? Not with crowds like that! - and so I was intrigued when the link about their ground was being "updated", but the "getting there" link does place them squarely in this field behind a pub off a main road.

So, what's with the spectacularly out-of-date noticeboard? Weird, but slightly disappointing, to be honest - I preferred the 'ghost ground' story. Ah well, up the Cestrians.

I continued down the main road to Chester-le-Street, to Riverside Park which, as the sign makes clear, is more than a park, it's the "Gateway to the Great North Forest", an apparently astounding wilderness that had hitherto escaped my attention for five entire years, and wasn't obviously in the immediate vicinity. The park does have an excellent play area for kids, though.

Meandering around the park's perimeter I came upon a subway with the intriguing title... ... and when I cycled in, I found an excellent set of murals obviously painted by some local kids (possibly from St Leonards Catholic school), under the guidance of the region's NHS Trust, the County Council and a mental health charity for kids.

Impressive artwork, and of course wholly admirable and sensible sentiments (the "Get some sleep" one made me laugh out loud, too), but descending into the tunnel surrounded by all this intense anxiety was somewhat alarming.

Eee, it were simpler in our day (we had The Smiths for starters).

And this is life in the frenzied heaving metropolis of Chester-le-Street. Who knows what would be on Council-sponsored murals in south London?

Onward into the town itself, and to a pub - any pub. I settled o The Butchers Arms, down a side-road off the main high street, where I was only the 2nd customer in, and I had a bog-standard pub lunch ('seasonal vegetables' turned out to mean boiled carrots and cabbage!), and a creditable pint. Then back home...

So - ghostly football grounds and teenage nightmares in Chester-le-Street. Next week - Langley Park.

Coast to Coast (C2C) 2011 - The Stamina-building Tour of County Durham 1

This year, in a nod to my own mortality and - more pressingly - burgeoning belly blubber, and inspired by two mates [Stuart and Liam] who've run the London Marathon, I've resolved to attempt the Coast-to-Coast bike ride.

I'm planning on the Whitehaven to Sunderland route (click on the map above to see it in all its glory/horror): 135 miles in all, from sea to shining/freezing sea, o'er dale and hill, all on my faithful 21-gear friend here.


To which, I need to get fit. Presently, my only real exercise is as follows:
- The 2-mile bike ride to work and back (when it isn't raining/ too cold/ I know for a fact the wonderful #21 bus will be passing by our house in 5 minutes)
- A weekly kickabout with members of University staff
- Playfights with Liam (which, as his Oedipal complex hardens into a full-blown neurosis, have taken on a more frenzied, and thus knackering, quality of late).

I recognised - and more to the point so did Valeria - that this regime would be hopelessly inadequate prep for four days of cycling, and so I have to build up my stamina, as well as get into the zone, maaaaaaaan, of long cycle journeys.

I've set aside Thursday lunchtimes for a weekly, long-ish bike ride from Our-House to Somewhere-Reasonably-Far-Away-in-County-Durham, and pencilled in some nearby destinations on successive weeks... The plan is a deceptively simple one: set off to arrive for lunchtime, find a local pub, have a pint, cycle back.

First stop: a village I vaguely recalled from a family trip into the countryside a while ago, called Hett. About 7 miles away, up what I knew would be a bugger of a hill (into Croxdale, the preceding village), but surely do-able. And I remembered there was a pub on the village green to slake my thirst on arrival...


I arrived 45 minutes after setting off, and I'm quite chuffed to say I managed to get up the bloody big long hill in one go, with no stops to admire the view/ be revived by trained paramedics.

Hett is a typical country village, with an endearingly, almost stereotypically inadequate focal point in its village hall (note my plan to take a commemorative picture of my bike at the end of my journey)...

BUT, when I got to the pub, the Hett Arms, IT WAS SHUT! Bloody CLOSED DOWN two months earlier!

In retrospect, perhaps I should have researched a bit more, but then, as I cycled back down the long lane leading to Hett, I decided that that would only take the potential for ultimate calamity out of the whole effort - and where was the fun in that?


So I headed back down the hill to Croxdale, to avail myself of one of its two pubs, the Daleside Arms.

Also shut (it's weird entering an open but not serving pub, as the silence and absence of life is eerie, like entering a murder scene).

But someone from the wonderful Franks Carpets did turn up - click on the picture to check out their carefully considered focus-grouped-to-death branding catchphrase - so I could hardly protest... (The pub opens at 5pm weekdays, apparently.)

I cycled back toward Durham, and had my first C2C pint at The Honest Lawyer, a pub/hotel... and reasonable enough it was, too.

Pausing only en route to take a picture
of the amusingly titled, and iconic, roundabout at the top of Durham itself, I got back home in reasonably good shape.

Next journey - Chester Moor.

Winter comes early to Durham

Winter has come early to Durham (late November 2010). We've had epic, blanketing amounts of snow over the weekend, and again today. Proper seasons, not like them in that there London...

To their huge credit (though this is not quite how Liam saw it), his school - Blue Coat Junior, in Newton Hall - defied the snow to insist on opening, when pretty much every other school in the city closed. Most of the staff live locally, it seems. We got there OK in the morning, by bus, to learn that only two other kids had made it from Liam's class.

But when it came to collect him, Valeria and I ended up walking the mile or so in a full-on blizzard... It reminded us of the Shackleton DVD we watched recently. Paraphrasing Sir Ernest somewhat: "TO BLUE COAT JUNIOR SCHOOL! FIVE HUNDRED METRES A DAY!" But Valeria did look very cute in the snowstorm...

Daddy also made two snowmen to greet those trekking up our road... And Liam made a couple of creditable snow angels in our front garden... Round the back of Country Hall, about a 10 minute trudge from our house, there are a couple of agreeably steep and long hillsides for sledging.


Liam took a while to feel comfortable with having a go, but loved it after one run. Hopefully you can open the film of one go...

Winter 2009-10

As we head toward April, it looks like the 'proper'/ 'actual' winter of 2009-10 is now over.

Up in the frozen wastes of the North East, it did exactly what is said on the meteorological tin. Durham looked tremendous. As can be seen, the river froze at one point.

As for Liam, we had fun building decent-sized snowmen outside our house - eee, they get heavy to push around when they reach knee-height, don't they?! - and snowball fights on the way to school.

Funniest moment: Liam became aware that some schools elsewhere in the country were being shut because of the snow, but every morning BBC Tyne and Wear confirmed that his school, St Oswald's, would be open and expecting the kids to show up, at the headmistress' behest. One morning, Liam finally lost patience: "What will it take for her to close the school?!" he protested...

Ian, Andrea and Bella's UK tour stops at Durham

Back in August we had a fantastic weekend when two old friends from London, Ian and Andrea, came by Durham. They were on a meticulously planned two-week UK tour of the friends they left behind when they emigrated to Almeria in Spain... Bringing with them their absolutely lovely daughter, (Isa)Bella.

We put them up in the 900 year-old Castle (something of an upgrade on the Travelodge they'd originally booked, we like to think - and a top tip for anyone thinking of coming up to see us!) and we had two tremendous days.

Such occasions are always a source of anxiety - will your own kid get on with someone new, or shun them with a graceless, cringe-inducing public shunning, or whack them, Marlo Stanfield-style, for some imperceptible slight? Their reaction is also entirely out of your hands - beyond priming exhortations to "be nice" prior to people's arrival.

But Liam and Bella got on famously. Comparably daft senses of humour clinching the bond, we think...

The highlight was certainly the daytrip to the peerless Broom House Farm, which is becoming a Durham classic (Liam had his 5th birthday there).

They've improved the adventure playground enormously, adding loads of new bits, and all the kids had a top time - from those aged 5 and 6 up to, er, well, those whose age is a multiple of 5 and 6. The rope pulley proved particularly popular...! The pictures of Liam on the balancing beam are the first time he got across (it's about 5m long, or so) - shortly after seeing Bella manage it, it's only fair and very Guardian-reading to point out! This was the first of what became known during the summer as his 'Boy on Wire' moments, after that deranged but inspiring French fella who walked across a wire between the two World Trade Centres in the 70s.

By contrast, however, the picture of Ian in the net records the moment he fell off the beam. Not really his fault - he and I were trying to pass each other on a beam no more than 10 cm across. Only ever going to be one outcome, really...

The return trip - to lovely Almeria - is looking for a weekend in spring next year!

Play date with Nathalie and Leona

Liam had a play-date/ lunch on Saturday 1st August with his friend from school, Nathalie, her sister and their Dad, Jochen.

Nathalie goes to Liam's school, and I don't think I'm embarassing our son when I suggest that she is probably the first girl he ever took a real shine to, a couple of years back.

They became King Liam and Queen Nathalie of Durham for the day, along with Princess Leona, making and designing these crowns - and don't they make a regal couple?!