Beamish Museum

We finally took a trip to Beamish Museum. So many people have mentioned it as a must see. It costs about £40 for a family ticket, but you can go back free for a year in that price.
It's called a 'living museum' and very similar to the Welsh St Fagans, except it's about 5 times the size. So big you have to hop on one of the free trams/trains/buses that frequently travel past when your feet start to get tired.
It really did live up to the expectation. Everything is accessible. You walk down a street from history, you can enter the shops, speak to the proprietors, leave the shops, pass some houses, visit the dentists, the farms, even the small gardens at the back of the houses.
It's also a photographers dream. I was told you would need a full day+ and they were right. There is so much to see, we just scratched the surface.

Judie Tzuke At The Sage

An hour out of Barney on the 12th of June, we visited Gateshead 'The Sage'. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't the space age looking building we found (just seen poking into the corner on the last picture).
Judie was as usual fantastic, and we all had the privilege to hear her daughters too. It was the kid's first proper concert, and they were blown away. I don't think they will ever hear someone quite as good as Judie.
When we came out the town was lit up looking very picturesque.

Teesdale Sports Center

It's only taken me about a year to go to the Sports Center, even though I pass it every day on the way to work. Our friend Michael has started a sort of Badminton Club, so Thursdays we've started going and having a knock around. For £6 a court for an hour, split between however many, it's pretty good value.

The Meet Pt.2

The Meet ended on bank holiday Monday with a procession through the town. Not the greatest spectacle, but it was nice weather and the amount of people who turned out to see it was staggering for such a small town.

The Meet

It's the big weekend for Barnard Castle. An event called 'The Meet'. We weren't here last year so missed it then. So far rain has stopped some of the events. Last night it was tipping it down so we didn't go to the Bowes Vs Barney veterans Football Match. Shame.

Today there was also some sort of mix up, there was supposed to be a huge boot sale. As you can see from the picture below, 3 cars is not a huge boot sale!

At 2 this afternoon however, rain or not, an event called 'Not The Boat Race' took place and was great fun. It's a makeshift boat race from the main stone bridge into Barney to the next bridge down the river. The Rugby Club had 3 entries, I also spotted one of the Bowes Footie team, but a friend from work won it in the pictures directly below.

There's a few more events planned, and if the weather holds off I'll add some more.

Coopers

After a long shopping session in Richmond, Nicky took us all to her favourite cafe, Coopers. This picture is from the downstairs area. It's very relaxing and do a superb hot chocolate!

Yarm

It was a bit of a grey day when we visited Yarm, but I wasn't that impressed. The shops, in my opinion, were overpriced and the meal we had in a local pub, though OK, was really tainted by the glass of cider I had that came in a glass with lipstick marks round the edge. Yarm has a huge viaduct in it. The top picture shows it down a side street, but it is very dominant as you reach the end of the town.