A beautiful city, certainly worth going back to.

As tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the US, I’m reposting this.

No Thanksgiving Day in France. But I will definitely miss the turkey and all its trappings. And the leftovers on the following days! In spirit, I’ll be with my friends Bob and Norma (Norma being a super cook).

This photo was taken thanks to Mrs K. one of my faithful commenters who has become a friend and generously welcomed us in Gateshead. Let her and Joan be thanked.

We had indeed caught sight of The Angel of the North, a huge structure conceived by Anthony Gormley, which can be seen when you drive around Newcastle. Mrs K. made it easy for us and drove us there, then into Newcastle.

You wouldn’t be able to see this photo the way it is if it hadn’t been photoshopped by Leo Reynolds, who “removed” the people
The original photo is here
More photos of Newcastle and Gateshead here
More to come when I get some time away from walking…

Last night, when I finally fell asleep with the TV on, a bit after 3 o’clock Paris time, the results weren’t there for good, but I knew that Barack Obama was to be the 44th president of the United States.

A few days ago, flickr friend zyrcster was at a rally at Pueblo to hear Obama speak.

Just go to her flickr page and read what she wrote.
I knew that if Barack Obama was elected, and he is, I wanted this photo on my blog.

Last night I heard this lovely sentence on TV that says

Rosa sat so Martin could walk, so Obama could run, so our children can fly

Don’t you love it?

Congratulations to all! I really feel that the United States of America have turned an important and historic page.
My thanks to zyrcster for letting me use her photos. More of her rally photos here

More photos of Durham here, but I am far from having finished the upload!

Update: the knocker on the door is a replica. The real knocker is in the cathedral’s Treasury. It dates back to the MiddleAges

Durham Cathedral was also a centre for criminals seeking sanctuary. A criminal would bang the sanctuary knocker at the north door on Palace Green to alert one of the watchmen. They would be admitted into the cathedral, and offered sanctuary for 37 days. They were obliged to confess the details of their crime to the coroner, and they had to change their clothes for a black robe with a yellow cross on the shoulder.

From BBC h2g2

We’ve had quite beautiful days lately, sunny and rather warm, somewhat like an Indian summer and it was quite enjoyable since September had been rather rainy and chilly. But you can tell that we’re heading towards winter.

When I saw her, I loved her instantly. She was there at the Luxembourg gardens, sitting on a bench, smiling to herself on that beautiful October day. What you see in her ear was not a hearing aid but an earphone as she was listening to music.

One day, when I am “old old” as Mort Reichek put it in a remarkable post, I hope my health will allow me to spend time thus enjoying myself.
I will probably not be listening to music on an iPod, as I really don’t like earphones in my ears, but I might sit on a bench with what the next generation mini computer, light enough to be carried around by elders.
Talking about “old old” if you haven’t read this series yet, you don’t want to miss The Oldest Old project at Time Goes By, a week’s worth of wonderful posts by people like Darlene, Mort Reichek, mentioned above or Millie Garfield.
The project starts, blogwise, with Darlene, and you don’t want to miss any of the others, so go down the pages.

I am rather late in posting as yesterday was a pretty busy day.

This is a picture of Millenium Bridge in Gateshead, near Newcastle. Catherine and I were lucky enough to stay in Gateshead with Mrs K. (one of my faithful commenters) and Joan. Mrs K. drove us to the Angel of the North and then near Millenium Bridge.
Newcastle is a stunning place and as it was rather sunny that day, we walked around for quite a while.

One of the places we really wanted to visit was Holy Island, also called Lindisfarne. And in fact, we went there twice. Once with Peggy, but that time, we had somehow disregarded the hours of tides and the island is only reachable at low tide. That time, we just got in view of Holy Island and gave up, but not until I had filmed a snail’s progress .
The second time, the weather was not as good, but Holy Island is a magic place and although it was misty at best, and raining at worst, we really enjoyed our visit.

More photos of Holy Island here

One of these days when we hadn’t read our guidebook closely. It turned out that Souter Lighthouse was closed on that day.
We had planned to climb up and see the view, but it couldn’t be done. It didn’t stop us from taking a walk and admiring the cliffs.

Lots of cormorants to be seen on a huge rock, and this small memorial on the grass

Then we drove on to Gibside
A lovely day.