Hadrian´s
Wall
Dear Fran,
<< 020916 To kill a mockingbird
There are two girls. One girl has a photo camera and her hair is reddish. The other one is blonde and she manages the atrezzo, she´s responsible of the scarves, the trolley and the wand while the photographed points out the platform 9 ¾ with the magic wand.
I´m at the King Cross station and I have to wait here for a couple of hours.
I was afraid missing my train and, on the contrary, I arrived too early. My destination: Newcastle upon Tyne.
The girl in blonde helps to move the scarf as if the wind had its work. There is a great exactness between the jump, the flight scarf and the flash.
Nevertheless some are not able get off the ground.
On the way I feel the pressure in my ears crossing tunnels. I can see ponds with geese, ducks and others birds even swans... I think I´ve been Durham cathedral which is being restored its façade!
Beside me a boy offers me one biscuit. The best well I know say “no, thanks” and at the same time I realize that he picks up a magazine for runners and a book. His invitation gives cause for a little daring and before I get off the train I say him: in my modest opinion that book is better than the second part. Really? He seems interested. The book speaks about Mr Atticus Finch, two boys, a girl, racism and the most important things of the life. The writer: Harper Lee.
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| Tyne bridge. Newcastle |
I´m already in Newcastle.
Because my mobile phone is out of order and after trying to connect to my family via phone booth, Laing Art Gallery, City Library and a few other establishments, come in at Bierrex, where a delightful girl –previous consult her boss- gives me the chance of talking to my oldest daughter. All´s OK and I´m fine. I´ll remember this pub and its friendly staff forever.
030916 Aemilia finger ring
I´m in South Shields. In its pier. The confidence I have myself played me a trick. I´m waiting for crossing from here to North Shields by ferry and then continuing to Tynemouth.
Right now I´m seeing the boat approaches to us.
HRH The Princess Royal officially named this ferry “Spirit of the Tyne”. 1st March 2007
Saturday 6 August “Live music on the Tyne”, The Gatecrashers (rock, pop, soul, rhythm amd blues)
I got on the bus, the three, three, three, repited me a kind Metro employee, twice repeat me, the second time slower, three, three, three, from North Shields to Tynemouth… I don´t understand anything the bus driver says. My first visit it is dedicated to see the sea. I dreamed at home can come here. Very intense. My second objective: the Tynemouth Priory and its stones, its hollows and gap and void. The air.
Tynemouth Priory… in addition its history, I was eager to see the ruins and check how they were. I wanted to stand here for long time, nevertheless the weather… I had dreamed of an amazing sunset but the Metro error was worth it: 4´80 pounds allowed me a complete round voyage by different transports
As my phone still does not work, I come to the library hoping to find a means of communication to contact to my family but, unfortunately, all the computers are unserved!
Sorry. Perfect day. It´s raining.
Today dawned drizzling, but now it´s windy and continues cloudy as well, but I did know where came to.
I can´t enter the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade Watch House Museum:
We are sorry but the WATCH HOUSE MUSEUM is CLOSED
It continues to rain. I cannot remove my camera from its cover.
Back in Newcastle I´m looking for the Aemilia Ring.
“This ring could be the earliest Christian object found in Britain. The inscription reads AEMILIA ZESES, meaning “Aemilia may you live”. The words “in god” may also have been intended, as this was a well known Christian motto”. “2nd-4th century AD, found near Corbridge Fort”.
As I have not time – they close at 4pm- I promise to return tomorrow. But before leaving the building, and this page, is forced to thank the young lady at reception who provide me talk to my family. Thank you, Miss Tahnee.
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| From Tynemouth Priory |
040916 Geordie Bees
Sunday. Lord´s Day. I attend a sung mass at St. John the Baptist Church.
9:50 I´m on time. The organ sounds. The retinue reaches. Silence.
I´d had liked to understand the sermon, notwhistanding I heard the priest talking about the differences between the both the king of Scotland and the king of England. The priest spoke about W. Wallace and even the performance done by Mel Gibson in the film. I didn´t understood his criticism.
Cause I wanted to buy some honey –as a present to my wife-, I had gone to St. John the Baptist. I confess.
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| St. John the Baptist |
After talking with a choir singer I did know that there was not honey at that moment (I didn´t understand why) anyway, despite I´m not a believer, my stay there was nice.
Marcus Hispanus Modestinus; Age: Early 50; Fort: Carrawburgh; Occupation: Prefect; Ethnic origin: Spanish; Year: 3rd Cent.AD.
Today I have time to revel in this, I don´t know how to say, surprising and educational museum.
My counsel: if you go to Newcastle you must visit the Hancock Museum.
Apart the treasures that holds, the entrance to it is really natural and many families with little kids caught my attention.
Of course, most of the time was dedicated to the Roman world. Here some of the highlight from my point of view, obviously:
Bronze wheel brooch (were the symbols of the Celtic god Taranis).
Ring pendant, made from lithomarge, Housesteads Fort. People thought veined stones were linked to the gods and provided protection.
Remembering the Dead: Child´s coffin, cremation Urns and Lead coffin.
Worshipping on the Wall: The cult of Mithras.
Building the Wall.
Kill or Cure: Baths, Practical Medicine, Magical Medicine (according to the writer Pliny, jet finger ring cured all sorts of ailments and was even useful for driving off snakes.
Living on the Wall: Changing Fashions (brooches, necklace, bracelet and rings). The Written World, Dedications, Pastimes…
Supplying the Wall: Tastes of the Empire (Cooking Equipment), Kitchen Utensils (a baker´s peel, used to remove bread from hot ovens, Housesteads Fort), Farming and Rotary Quern (try turning the quern stone with the handle), Trade and transport (glass container, Egypt 70-170 AD).
Arming the Wall: Defending the Frontier.
However this Museum is much more.
050916 A hero lives here but we just call him DADDY
It´s nine thirty three in the morning; I cross the Newcastle station footbridge and waiting for my Hexham train.
Half an hour after I get off the train and Hexham station receive me all full of holding vases with beautiful flowers. Throughout the whole platform I can distinguish yellow, red, blue, violet, pink… and its diverse hues. All and sundry colours.
I´ve arrived before my accommodation is open, therefore to while away the time I ramble through the town centre and into the park. An air of peace and relax is breathed here. I love this tiny city!
Enjoy a quiet space
Light a candle
Say a prayer
Am I a pilgrim? Maybe my way. Are we not pilgrims?
There are many things I like about the Hexham Abbey: the great mass relative to the other buildings and population, the Frith stool (a Saxon cathedra), the night stairs (its worn treads), the Acca´s cross, the firth stone steps of the crypt (to which I couldn´t go down), the choir…
Laps of the park and in a hidden corner of it I found some hanging tablets dedicated to a hero.
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| No comment |
Now I could speak about leather and gloves but that´s another story.
060916 AD 122
The AD 122 drives me to Chester Roman Fort and from here I begin to do the Hadrian´s Wall Path.
Apart to tell you that I would defeated Sir Sebastian Coe running the final of this stage for I was afraid not to get catch the bus back to Hexham…
On my return, a charming young lady at the doors of The Little Angel Cafe, offered me her mobile in order to reassure my family.
I keep quiet.
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| Peacefulness |
This pic is a poor sample of this incredible landscape.
070916 A bottle of water
This second stage I remember it for something that befell me: I had arrived to a crossroads and I did not know which track I should continue so. Fortunately there was a pair of neighbourly neighbours that they attended me with lot of niceness.
(Now, I know who they are. Now I know their names: Christine and David and I know they rule a B & B “both of us have lived in the North all our lives and have a good knowledge of the area, its history and places of interest”).
Christine filled up my empty bottle with cool water and showed me the way to follow.
That day was completed with a short lift that a couple of Australians gave me to my hotel at Greenhead. In the hotel they lent me the phone again to give my situation and my health condition. Thanks to all of them.
This pic is another poor example of that day.
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| Cawfields Quarry |
080916 Five months of pride
But it came on a sore day of heavy rain.
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| Self-portrait |
From Greenhead until Lanercost Priory it does not stop raining. As they say in those lands it´s raining cats and dogs. The first part of the stage I can´t do many photos and some of them appear with droplets of the lens. An amazing place.´
My footprints have been marked in the vicinity of Birdoswald.
As it was still raining a lot, a merciful neighbor from Banks, impressed by my appearance, drove me to the very door of Lanercost Priory.
In Lanercost Priory I had the luck to meet with David. In my opinion, the two gave us great joy this encounter, at least that was my feeling. He said me that he had lived for more than twenty years in Chile and his son was married to a Chilean. Also he told me that they were quite proud because at the beginning of the fourteenth century that piece of land had been the capital of England for six months.
Brampton was waiting for me.
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| River Irthing |
090916 Walkers are welcome
I went first to the Moot Hall where the woman in charge of the Tourist Information Centre told me the situation of my hotel, where there was a phone booth and where I could take the bus to Carlisle. Also during a few moments we were talking about cities to remember. Among other she had delighted my city.
Once in my room I dry up all my wet clothes and I go for a walk by this small market town.
As well as the hospitable people, Brampton offered me one of the best sunsets I have ever seen.
I am in Carlisle in twenty five minutes, approximately.
Its castle, its cathedral, its citadel, its squares and gardens… its rich history (I am not going to speak of Mary, Queen of Scots or that it is the most besieged place in the British Isles). I´m going to speak about its rapid development of the cotton, about Shaddon Mill and, most of all, about the Carlisle´s Dixon´s Chimney because there is a part of history which I love enormously: the Industrial Revolution.
Unfortunately I didn´t get a mediocre pictures of the building so you have to look the Internet.
However I will tell you that from Bridge St I was impressed with the majestic vision that the Chimney shows after nearly two hundred years. But at the same time this vision reminds me the movies that I have seen with children working in factories, mines and looms. I have mixed feelings.
100916 Stretched out, staring at the stars
The second day I spent in Carlisle was dedicated to the Cathedral, its castle and its two rivers.
Carlisle has phone booths operating without any problems.
In the middle of the choir there is a carpet where you can lie down and see the firmament. This ceiling had a significant and lasting effect on my heart: thousands of kilometers from home, at noon and indoors, I could see the same stars that some nights I observe from my terraced roof. The sky is the same everywhere and you belong to it.
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| Carlisle Cathedral |
The castle walls are reddish with many freckles on its walls. Carlisle castle is not high, it is low and wide and I encircled it as far as to meet the Caldew, which flows into the Eden. The meeting place of two rivers point the way for Beaumont and Burg by Sands via Hadrian´s Wall. Because the heavy rain, the rivers were still too brown.
From the point where the two rivers merge at one I go around the shore of the Eden through its semi-savage gardens to reach a plaque that gives me a certain tension:
Carlisle City Council
This line marks the height of the
Carlisle Flood on 8th January 2005
Dedicated to the victims and
those who helped in the
rescue and recovery
operations
Then I enter The Lanes, I stroll the gardens –intimate gardens- of Tullie House, the Citadel and soon return to my guesthouse. The journey is about to end and I´m already feeling a little nostalgia. I´ve dinner in my room and turn on the tv a little before falling asleep. Tonight is the closing ceremony of the BBC Proms this season.
Silence, sings Juan Diego Florez.
110916 Farewell
The Carlisle train station is bonny, but it´s currently being restored: its glass roof is being changed by another one of a sturdier material and easier maintain. It reminds me a station in my city which was demolished when I was still a child.
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| A flower on the road |
To my dismay, when I caught the train to Euston station I knew that I left a lot of things to do, many people to meet and nooks where to breathe emotions…
I´d have liked to visit Corbridge –its bridge-, Haltwhistle –its High Street-, Haydon Bridge –Monica Jones and Philip Larkin´s house-, Burgh by Sands –its marshes- and other places, but I´ve got a family and responsibilities, you know.
Maybe someday I´ll go through those places.>>
Y. A.
Mary
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