Cotherstone

On Saturday morning we carried on our exploring along the Tees Railway Walk. We started where we left off at Romaldkirk and walked to Cotherstone. A lovely little village. A lot of the places around Barney feel like something from the 70's, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture them 100 years + ago.

Romaldkirk

My first day off this year. We went with our friend Michael on the Railway Walk to Romaldkirk. We got there about 11, and nipped into the Rose & Crown where we had hot chocolate and found they had just made some scones, so fresh from the oven with strawberry jam and clotted cream all round! Fantastic.

City Vs Stoke

A sort of belated Xmas pressie for Nathan. 2 hours down the road to the Etihad for the Stoke game. City won 1-0 which is a bonus.

Aguero, still on injury leave arrives.

 The rest of the team turn up in their luxury Starliner coach.

 We were there quite early, the stadium was almost empty when we sat down.

 The 'City' boy & his Dad.

 The team came out to warm up. We could have reached out and touched them from our seats.

 Nathan really wanted Nicky to come too this time.

 The 'Beast' Negredo.

 Flag waving, music & singing before the start.

 When it finally filled up it was a sell out attendance.

Egglestone Gardens

Winter is slowly coming to an end and today we had a big enough break in the weather to visit Egglestone gardens. There is a garden center in the grounds and that itself leads off to 'The Old Church' which is completely overgrown and has a tree growing right in the middle of it.
After that, we took a walk down the road, followed the river and ended up in the hills following all those wooden steps yo can see.
A nice morning for the boots to get muddy.

Happy Birthday to Me!

December 18th and another year older. My first birthday in Barnard Castle and my wife surprised me first with a crate of Guinness Surger, complete with glasses, beer mats and the Surger device, and then after work a meal at The Crown in Mickleton.
The Crown: http://www.thecrownatmickleton.co.uk/ has Andrew as the Chef. Andrew is the guy who did the ready steady cook type sessions at Raby Castle when we went there for the locally grown food fair. he really knows his business and it was a great meal and a great restaurant/pub.
The portions were great, and I did OK up until the deserts. Take a look at the tray they gave me. Those 7 deserts look small but they knocked me out.

Almost Christmas

One of our little Pre-Xmas traditions is the DVD opening. We are a little unusual in that we have never had TV, I mean, we don't have a license and watch TV etc. We have a DVD & Blu-Ray player, but that's it. So each Christmas I start getting a pile of films together for the holiday season, and a week or so before I let the kids open them all up. It's our first start to the season.

Fireworks

I thought I'd posted this, so sorry i'm a little late. This shot was taken of the Barnard Castle Fireworks display at Green Lane School (the same place Nathan has football practice). There was a bonfire too, a 16' trojan Horse went up in flames. Apparently last years event at The Domains was cancelled because of horse lovers complaining, so it was a bit of a statement.
Anyway, I went into a neighboring field to take this shot, also causing me to save on the entry fee, that's my excuse anyway. It was pitch black, and me and Nicky struggled to set the tripod up, change lenses, add the shutter release cable etc etc all by the light of another camera's back panel I had on me.
It was pretty good. Barney is a pretty small town, so didn't know what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised.