Keep calm and eat Chocolate.

Keep calm ‘panic’ and then carry on.   

To my lovely readers, most importantly to ‘me mum’ who has enriched herself in some England history via You-Tube.

Believe it or not I have visited Barter Books.  I am certain that I have not yet blogged about my trip to this fantastic dream land.  It has lattes and books, what else must I say. 

After reading a fellow bloggers rant about her love for Barter Books, it had become first on my ‘I want to do’ list.  That was in October sometime.  This wonderful wish came true around the Christmas holidays.  Although it came as a surprise, which made it even better!  

All respects go to, once again, Mr. Alecks (Daniel’s new name) for taking me.  He had planned a castle tour of Alnwick (pronounced annik).  This castle, among other things, was used in the Harry Potter movies.  I was really not that into going to see this castle, because frankly I cannot understand that enthusiasm about wizards.  I am also not that into castles.  I have become accustomed to seeing ruins all over Newcastle, even in our own neighbourhood! I do enjoy Mr. Alecks’ field-trips though, and that is why I jumped into the Volkswagen (Folks car, that’s for the German! Haha) and headed off!

To our sad surprise, the castle was not open for the winter season, so we visited the extremely touristy gift shop.  This of course was not a happy ending, until...  Mr. Alecks’ said, “I will take you to a famous book shop down the street, they have lovely lattes”.

I was almost speechless!  I think I also started to shake out of excitement.  “Ah...Dan this book shop, did it used to be a train station?” 

Well my loves, I should have taken more photos, but this is all I have of this lovely splendid place!  I do hope to re-visit again.  Perhaps the rest of them can go to the castle and leave me there with my non-fat vanilla spice latte with whip, and a book next to the fireplace.

And our adventure begins...

This toy train, out of commemoration for the old real train, circles around the entire book store.

Ryan, not looking as enthused as I was!

The infamous 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster in the back ground, as well as the train.

Mr. Alecks' photography skills

Yay!!!!!

I'm not too sure why this was there. It is a well, and there was actually water in it.  Ryan and I, as smarty pants we are assumed that is was for the dogs to drink.  As there was many there that day.

This 'Windsor' sign was right outside Barter Books.

You find flocks of shipe everywhere, especially between here and Scotishland.  'Shipe'  we have discovered, is the plural form for sheep.

The tree house at Alnwick Castle and Amy's long mane of ginger hair.

Part of the tree house

Amy's photo shoot

Mr. Alecks shaking the bridge frightening Ryan.

Ryan pretending not to look frightened about the bridge

Bum shot... Ryan, Amy, Mr. Alecks

 Until next time, keep fit and have fun!

So... It’s spring in Newcastle upon Tyne!

Overnight it has turned into spring and it has been a breath of fresh air!

Living in England and dealing with the lifeless dull weather has put a damper on our journey.  It has been cold, but hasn’t snowed and has been damp every day since November 1^st!  This is why I am soooo excited to have this gorgeous weather to blog about!

All this week I have thought I was running late, because it was daylight before 8:30am.  Today the sun did not set until, 6:30pm.  This is delightful, because, those of you who have been reading or have been in contact with me since being over here, know that the worst part so far has been the sun-setting at 3:00pm and not rising until 8:30am and then even, being overcast for the entire day!

With this darling weather I decided to walk to Jesmond and visit a few places (library, post office, Tesco).  I even brought the camera to make this journey fun!  It was grand until... I ran into a group of lads, no older than 13 years of age.  There were about 6 of them.  They were all on their bikes.  I was in an alley on my way from South Gosforth to Jesmond when I spotted them.  I was thinking, ‘oh jesus here we go’.  You see, if this was in Canada I wouldn’t have noticed them.  Here, in Newcastle, I know how these children think, I mark their literacy, I hear what they talk about during break time, and I know what they are capable of.  Anyway I tried to ignore them, as I was trying to look for some great shots for my camera, but no, they couldn’t be respectful human beings they had to go and ruin this gorgeous day.  

The first boy put his hand out towards my head and made some sort of noise, or grunt, or whatever (it could have even been Goerdie for all I know! Haha) then his mate went by and chucked something at me.  I didn’t know at the time what he had thrown, but all I know is that I could and would not let these twerps get away with ruining my day!

I was fuming...  I turned around and said, “Who threw something at me?  Which one of you threw something at me?  The boys all stopped and turned toward me.  At this time I was thinking, ‘what the hell am I going to say to them anyway?  What am I going to do?  I couldn’t show that I was scared or completely gone mad, so I just kept walking towards them with a serious teacher look.  One boy said that it was ‘so and so’ and pointed to his mate who was cycling away.  I just stared at the one who talked to me for a long silence, a long enough dramatic stare until I could feel that he was just as uncomfortable as I was, and then I turned around and continued on my way.

I can’t tell you why I reacted the way I did.  I would have never thought I would do such a thing.  I don’t know what it was, but I felt that I needed to do something, anything to show that they are disrespectful.  Of course I understand that they probably do not care, or are not thinking ‘oh my, I was disrespectful’ but I do believe I surprised them by at least doing something.  It was probably my accent that made them stop in their tracks but whatever at least I made them see that I mean business. 

 After walking away I found out that it was chewing gum that was thrown at me.  Yep!  That is right, in my hair already been chewed by someone else.  I wanted to puke, as I tried to rip it out.  Thankfully it was at the bottom of my tresses and thus was easily removed.  Next time I am taking his picture and warning him that I will take his identification to the Bobbies! 

Here are some pictures of my neighbourhood.  I tried to take pictures of the things that are different here.  I have become so accustomed to these things that I am forgetting about how they are actually unique.  It was close to sunset so forgive me for the darkness.  I plan to take more to add here during the morning and afternoon, but for now enjoy my walk to the library.

This, believe it or not, is a school.  Most of the schools that I have taught at look like old Victorian house just like this one.  I have not unfortunately worked at this school.  It would be a dream though because it is right down the street from us!

Every time I see this sign I think, 'that would not work in Canada'.  We would see this as a verb.  A sexual one at that!  What this is trying to explain, is that there is 'SPEED BUMPS' ahead.

This is an England speed limit sign.

This just makes me want to climb it more to find out what this paint is actually capable of.

This 'T' symbol is to signify a dead-end street.

Getting a wee bit dark here.  This is post 'gum throwing' incident.  Anyway I took this to show how they put street signs on walls instead of signs.

When we first arrived here I thought that the Brits have areas for 'disabled cars'  I was wrong...

All the sidewalks look like this, and they do not refer to sidewalks as sidewalks.

Another street sign.  Low to the ground and not on a post.  This caused and has continued to cause great frustration when looking for schools!!

Give way, is their yield.

These are at every cross walk.

See... I wasn't lying

Instead of renting, they 'let'

what street are you on?.... umm let me walk down the block a bit and look on the side of a building to figure that out.

A nice post at the edge of the corner... picture it!  It really is lovely.

I felt as if this tree captured the 'spring like temperatures'

I was inspired by this lovely weather to make something ‘spring like’ for dinner.  I decided to try something from Pinterest, and I have pictures to show you my new recipe for tzatziki chicken wraps.

Alrighty then!  You start off with peeling cucumbers...

Add white wine vinegar, lots of fresh garlic, salt and pepper, lemon juice, and the cucumber to natural yogurt.  Let the sauce chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Add crushed garlic, red wine vinegar, olive oil, dried oregano and salt and pepper to chopped chicken in pan.

And voila!  This is supposed to be pitas not tortillas, but it is hard to find pitas here.

Yum yum!  The only thing is that our microwave decided to stop working...  Ryan doesn't come home for another 3 hours!! He may need to enjoy this cold... YUCK!

Until next time...Happy Pinning Pinteresters!!

Playing catch up with a few photos...

I have found a few miscellaneous photos which have brought back some memories.  Therefore it is only fair to blog about them!

Beginning with a dinner party that we had a few weekends ago.  Here in our cozy flat in England, we have no dining room, or dining table for that matter! This makes for a gathering between two settees and a living room table!  

The boys sitting at our Dining room table, inhaling Anne's cooking!  Actually here it looks like Dan is chocking!

Here in this picture is our wonderful meal made by, Anne.  Did you think I was going to refer to myself there?  Hahaha think again!  

Yum!!! Even looking at it right now I can taste it!

Our wonderful Anne prepared for us, chicken Tarragon with some beautiful potato dumplings from Germany!  It was spectacular!  We spent the rest of the evening watching a British film.  I can’t remember the name of it, but it was a dark psychological drama per say.  I love these types of evenings, just hanging about and making fun of each other’s accents (between the German, British, and Canadian).  Having Anne’s homemade meals make it that much better!

Next in line is the Quayside market!  (Pronounced Keyside).

Dan always sees it fit as to take us on field trips around Newcastle when we start to get crabby.  This weekend Dan decided to take us to the Quayside on a Sunday where there is a market every weekend.  I have always wanted to go to this market, so we accepted the offer of our travel consultant and headed out.  Sunday we decided to include breakfast, so we left around 10ish in hunt of a ‘Full English Fry-up’.  We found a quaint little cafe with a £5 breakfast that was right in-front of the market.  Delicious!  Along with a skinny vanilla Latte!

You would think from the amount of pictures I have of these two together, that they are my children...

Our view of the market during breakfast... Notice the gloomy England weather... and this was a nice day!

At the beginning of the market.

Finally a place to buy my undies! Soooo kidding!

After the market, Dan took us to an art gallery that is located a few steps from the Market.  The art gallery is called, the Baltic and it used to be a Flour Mill.

Our walk across the Millennium Bridge to the Baltic

On the millennium bridge.  This bridge tilts at certain times of the day!

Another picture of my 2 children entering the Baltic.

The remaining evidence of this Gallery once being home to a flour mill.

View from the top of the Baltic

The Sage!  Where there are live shows presented.

While there we were able to meet Anne, well not exactly!  We were able to meet the cartoon character that Dan swears Anne looks like.  This Character is indeed cute, but I don’t think it’s our Anne!  Meet Moomin....

Supposedly Anne's look alike...

Ahhhh... to make this blog extra special I have to share an Anne moment with you all.  You see Anne sometimes gets lost with conversation, but for the most part her English is stellar! The Moomin thing reminded me about a time when Anne was travelling and she sat with some Mormons.  I can’t remember the entire story, all I remember is Anne was thinking the entire time that the Mormon’s where referring to Moomin’s instead of their Mormon faith.  I remember hearing this and just dying!  Ahhhh.....  I love the lost in translation feature between the four of us it is ridiculous sometimes.

Dan decided that our day trip was still not finished, so he took us to the ‘Angel of the North’.  Before venturing across the Tyne to Gateshead, the boys inhaled a bratwurst from the market, and I guiltily ate an entire bag of cotton candy! Opppssss...

The ‘Angel of the North’ was constructed by artist, Antony Gormley.  He chose to re-create this massive male angel, because he wanted to strengthen the faith that they are still out there.  Even though no one has witnessed an angel, we need to keep our imaginations alive and well.

Ryan and I

Bum Shot!

Later, after a few hours rest at home, we ventured out to the ‘Bullman’ (local pub) for Sunday Dinner.  All in all it was a fantastic weekend! Thanks again to our Travel guide/photographer/most importantly best of kind mate! For the excitement!