I went up to Newcastle on Sunday Nov 30th taking the National Express coach. I left Brighton at 9:30am and got into Newcastle at about 6pm. I've been on plenty of long distance trips during my travels, but that was the most uncomfortable land-based one (the overnight ferry from Italy to Greece takes top prize). The seats were small and the head rests were too flat, my head would just roll off to one side. Thanks to my brother Peter I was able to listen to the radio scripts of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. I've read all 5 parts of the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy, but never heard this version before. Thanks Pete.

   I'm staying with Rory again and having a ball. Actually the Law School (a.k.a. The Eldon Society) had the ball, I just attended.

Jenny and Craig at the Ball

It was on Tuesday night and a far cry from the engineering balls of Auckland University. This time the girls were in fancy dresses, but at Auckland everyone was in Fancy Dress :-) and someone read grace in latin! There were speeches and toasts and a good feed before dancing the night away until the wee hours. I almost lost my camera in the back of the taxi, but the very friendly driver (who was a Lord Of The Rings Fan) came back and didn't charge me a thing.

   Aside from eating, drinking and dancing, there was also a mini casino available for those who felt we couldn't visit a race track without a little flutter. No money changed hands they just handed out £10 worth of chips and the person with the most at the end of the night won a bottle of champagne. I got up to £51 which was the record when I left the table, but by then I was down to £5 which I kept as a souvenir.

   On Monday I sat in on one of Jenny's law lectures, covering a bit of Public International Law. A bit cheeky perhaps but since the lecturer didn't mention anything I think I got away with it. I even went up and asked him a vaguely relevant question afterwards :-)

   For the rest of the week I've mostly been hanging out in toon. Jen and I have seen Love Actually (very funny, slightly sad, definitely worth viewing) and S.W.A.T. (good action shoot 'em up). Rory and Effie graduated on Wednesday and are now officially Masters of Science, what a cool title that is. I really wanted to do that at Oxford, but had to turn them down coz they thought I was a foreign student and wanted to charge me too much. Now that I am over here the government seem set to allow them to charge even locals an extortionate amount of money. :-/

   I think it was Thursday morning when we walked into town via Jesmond Dene. We took a moment to stop by Pets Corner.

A parrot at Pets Corner

It's a free little zoo with pot belly pigs, geese, goats, sheep and lots of birds. As you might expect there ere a number of mums with their toddlers, and a few grandparents wandering around. I hope other towns can get the money together to run something like this, the kids were really loving it and I think it makes it a nicer place to live for young families. A day or two later I discovered a slightly creepy part of the Dene, the pet cemetary.

The pet cemetary

Not nearly as creepy as the film though, especially when the names are Winnie, Albert and Lassie!.