Up at 7.30 it was evident the sea fret had rolled in and a second day of blue sky according to the weather forecasting seemed a distant hope but within an hour it had brightened and felt warmer, confirmed when I walked into town to buy £10 pounds of cherries, half for me, half for patients in the ward with my mother, and yes I thoroughly washed them before putting them in the sandwiches bags purchased at Asda on the return journey. Before departing I enjoyed my fourth three egg with ham omelette over the two weeks since rediscovering the art, although Mr Stein's Mediterranean food journey filled me once more with the desire to make lots of exotic dishes full of spices and sauces. Break off to check the BBC where some of the recipes are include and may attempt one or two, the first is a Greek salad for four which is something I could do and make into portions to be stored in the fridge and then eaten on consecutive days.
I also made up what was intended to be a late lunch of two salami rolls with lettuce, a few cherries, water and pepsi and set off parking by the entrance to Roker Park on what had become a glorious morning. With my camera I crossed walked to the wooden white Bridge, down the Eastern pathway across and up the West boundary again before taking the route towards the Park warden's Lodge, the Bandstand and into the bottom of the ravine. While the purpose of my second circuit within two days was to take photographs I had the opportunity to review my written recordings from yesterday. The main discovery has been to work out what I believe is a recent extension to the passenger carrying miniature railway covering the land where the rabbits had been allowed to become rampant. The second correction is that the Park Keeper's Lodge was much smaller from the brief perspective at a distance yesterday and my previous memory. The third is while several of the vertical floral displays centring the oblong and triangular beds had the tiered wedding cake structure a majority in the park contained not one but two vertical posts topped by large floral tree baskets. This reinforced my understanding of the relativity of perception with MD Vernon's book The Psychology of Perception the 1962 Pelican first edition and Ian Hunter's Memory, Facts and Fallacies a 1962 Pelican reprint of his 1957 my original source books. When I write for my own interest and entertainment and for future recollection when I can no longer walk the walks pin point accuracy is not of importance. Once the writing is published in any form and made available for one other person to read some day who might use the information to make a similar journey, quote a description, or create their own mental picture then there is responsibility to make the writing as objectively accurate, separating the factual information from individual judgements and impressions. It is also important not to assume the accuracy of the information provided by others however reputable the sources, with the recent example the BBC statement that the Whitburn Windmill had become the responsibility of South Tyneside Council several years before in fact the local authority came into being.
Given the early morning solitude and the brightness of the sun was a splendid walk, albeit the prologue for the morning's new stretch of the two rivers coastal which I have decided to title "Northern Rivera." I have suggested that the public accessible coastline between the two rivers is equal to that available in Cornwall, and I believe it is possible to go further and question the claim off Torbay to be the English Rivera or that of Scarborough to be the Northern, despite both having more spectacular landscapes. In my judgement it is the concentration of coastal interest, diverse parklands, two historically important rivers and three cities, each with their unique and special characteristic all with thirty to forty five minutes of each other and then within a comparatively short drive beautiful, isolated, wild landscapes in every direction from sand dune backed beaches, majestic castles, to great stretches of forest, water, moorland and highland. Grand country house estates and picturesque countryside villages, all available within a day.
My first new task yesterday morning reaching the bandstand which marks one end of the ravine was to follow the sound of the waterfall which then appeared to be higher and falling with greater force than I remembered from previous visits. It is better than several of natural origin. I then made the short walk through the ravine to where the bright sunshine sea was framed by the opening in the Dolomite pale soft stone, darkened by Victorian era pollution and created in its present form with the ending of the ice age, comparatively recently, as these events go, and the coastal road bridge above. The entrances to caves now securely closed were as I remembered, one to my left and two my right, although the distance between the latter was greater. They were once opened to the public with a walk through lighted display. I believe when the Council attempted to create an East Coast illuminations similar to those at Blackpool over a period of a decade, before concluding that the annual expenditure to attract visitors from outside the area to make repeated short stay breaks or add to the local economy my making an evening tour became unjustified. Living locally the lights brightened the approach of winter and over the years of operation some relatives did come and stay, which they would have done anyone at different times of the year and it was evident that most vehicles were driving through and then driving away without stopping for a drink or some food.
Leaving the ravine the cliff here stops any view of the small Roker Bay and the whole of the Whitburn and Seaburn Bay. The main Roker Beach and lower promenade to the south has its own character. There is an all weather shelter and the beach information office before The Smuggler a long two storey pub restaurant which was at the end of an extensive external repainting. A short distance from the pub there is a second longer functional building providing fish and chips, an indoor café and a small amusement arcade. Between the small sea retaining wall there is a wide promenade, a vehicle road and then a pavement before the grassy banks which rise at least fifty feet to sixty feet to the coast roadway above, There are a couple of long winding pathways and one very steep set of steps for the hardy walker. On the left is the northern pier which curves inwards narrowing the entrance to the river. There is the North East Diving Training establishment by the entrance to the pier.
On the right is the two storey Sunderland Sea Adventure centre and then an exceptionally busy fish and chips, snacks and ice cream take away with picnic tables where I stopped for a cool drink. I had already removed my sweat soaking shirt, using my jacket buttoned and where I mistakenly reattached its sleeves, and fortunately it had dried out in the sun before I heard the fog horn signalling that the sea mist was rolling in to an extent that the lighthouse marked he the edge of the vertical screen. On the inland journey parallel to the coast as I made my way to visit my mother, there was evidence that the mist continued to toll in and covered Whitburn but this was a temporary development and the warm sun continued until dusk.
Between the northern pier and a shorter breakwater which marks the end of the beach there is a beachside children's adventure play area partially encased in brightly decorated concrete to protect the equipment from the sea. The beach road continues for another fifty one hundred years with beach side car parking and a new private estate of terraced housing and flat blocks which will be re-explored as part of the marina area as there are interesting murals built into new walling as well as walkways around the marina basin on this of the river Wear
Yesterday I ended the lower promenade by walking around the new Lifeboat building up the steep winding roadway, stopping briefly to look along the road into the estate from where part of the marina and surrounding buildings can be seen, and then up to the roundabout junction where the coast road becomes the riverside road and leads onto the bridge across the river into the city centre. Across from the roundabout is the Queen Vic hotel and restaurant, with the same name as the Eastenders pub. This real life establishment does an excellent inexpensive roast lunch with a multiplicity of vegetables and is popular throughout the week. As a way of maintaining smoking customers an attractive outside area has been created. As the road way reaches the roundabout there is the old life boat building now shuttered and Victorians toilets which are kept in good working order and appearance. The last building is the small harbour view restaurant which has gone through several transformations and owners over my three decades here and attracts visitors by car and motorcycle although there is only space in front for a few vehicles as well as the more ambitious foot travellers as it is still a long walk from here into Sunderland centre and between two and three miles to Whitburn.
There is an unbroken terrace of flats, hotels and private three and four storey buildings from the roundabout until the roadway entrance to Roker Park. The Roker Hotel offered as many rooms as the Seaburn before its redevelopments, and has also gone through its own transformations and owners. There has always been a separate public dining establishment within the hotel which attracted visitors who were not staying at the hotel, and now there are two. A Chinese restaurant on the same level as the hotel bar restaurant, and an new Italian which provides a pleasant environment and good food at a lower level, and which also runs the beachside railway carriage restaurant at South Shields. I will go there for a happy hour meal before Winter.
The weather forecasters are promising more sunshine for a full weekend of sporting and music events. I have already discovered an band appearing at the Reading Carling festival tonight where I want to hear more, especially if they generate the same energy and excitement outside a festival arena, called Reverend and the Makers, The headline Act tonight is Razorlight whose music I also enjoy. Tomorrow the enormous Leeds festival begins. It is an early start for me tomorrow with Sunderland hosting Liverpool at the Stadium of Lights at 12.45. I misjudged the time for the first home game. I have been under the impression that Newcastle at the Boro was also on Saturday at 5.15 which would have shortened the hospital to visit to about an hour. It is on Sunday at 1.30 so I will do a late lunch. The sky was again a cloudless blue as I corrected and amended the writing before 8am having abandoned the task to concentrate on the physical charms of Penelope Cruz in Jamon Jamon
I also made up what was intended to be a late lunch of two salami rolls with lettuce, a few cherries, water and pepsi and set off parking by the entrance to Roker Park on what had become a glorious morning. With my camera I crossed walked to the wooden white Bridge, down the Eastern pathway across and up the West boundary again before taking the route towards the Park warden's Lodge, the Bandstand and into the bottom of the ravine. While the purpose of my second circuit within two days was to take photographs I had the opportunity to review my written recordings from yesterday. The main discovery has been to work out what I believe is a recent extension to the passenger carrying miniature railway covering the land where the rabbits had been allowed to become rampant. The second correction is that the Park Keeper's Lodge was much smaller from the brief perspective at a distance yesterday and my previous memory. The third is while several of the vertical floral displays centring the oblong and triangular beds had the tiered wedding cake structure a majority in the park contained not one but two vertical posts topped by large floral tree baskets. This reinforced my understanding of the relativity of perception with MD Vernon's book The Psychology of Perception the 1962 Pelican first edition and Ian Hunter's Memory, Facts and Fallacies a 1962 Pelican reprint of his 1957 my original source books. When I write for my own interest and entertainment and for future recollection when I can no longer walk the walks pin point accuracy is not of importance. Once the writing is published in any form and made available for one other person to read some day who might use the information to make a similar journey, quote a description, or create their own mental picture then there is responsibility to make the writing as objectively accurate, separating the factual information from individual judgements and impressions. It is also important not to assume the accuracy of the information provided by others however reputable the sources, with the recent example the BBC statement that the Whitburn Windmill had become the responsibility of South Tyneside Council several years before in fact the local authority came into being.
Given the early morning solitude and the brightness of the sun was a splendid walk, albeit the prologue for the morning's new stretch of the two rivers coastal which I have decided to title "Northern Rivera." I have suggested that the public accessible coastline between the two rivers is equal to that available in Cornwall, and I believe it is possible to go further and question the claim off Torbay to be the English Rivera or that of Scarborough to be the Northern, despite both having more spectacular landscapes. In my judgement it is the concentration of coastal interest, diverse parklands, two historically important rivers and three cities, each with their unique and special characteristic all with thirty to forty five minutes of each other and then within a comparatively short drive beautiful, isolated, wild landscapes in every direction from sand dune backed beaches, majestic castles, to great stretches of forest, water, moorland and highland. Grand country house estates and picturesque countryside villages, all available within a day.
My first new task yesterday morning reaching the bandstand which marks one end of the ravine was to follow the sound of the waterfall which then appeared to be higher and falling with greater force than I remembered from previous visits. It is better than several of natural origin. I then made the short walk through the ravine to where the bright sunshine sea was framed by the opening in the Dolomite pale soft stone, darkened by Victorian era pollution and created in its present form with the ending of the ice age, comparatively recently, as these events go, and the coastal road bridge above. The entrances to caves now securely closed were as I remembered, one to my left and two my right, although the distance between the latter was greater. They were once opened to the public with a walk through lighted display. I believe when the Council attempted to create an East Coast illuminations similar to those at Blackpool over a period of a decade, before concluding that the annual expenditure to attract visitors from outside the area to make repeated short stay breaks or add to the local economy my making an evening tour became unjustified. Living locally the lights brightened the approach of winter and over the years of operation some relatives did come and stay, which they would have done anyone at different times of the year and it was evident that most vehicles were driving through and then driving away without stopping for a drink or some food.
Leaving the ravine the cliff here stops any view of the small Roker Bay and the whole of the Whitburn and Seaburn Bay. The main Roker Beach and lower promenade to the south has its own character. There is an all weather shelter and the beach information office before The Smuggler a long two storey pub restaurant which was at the end of an extensive external repainting. A short distance from the pub there is a second longer functional building providing fish and chips, an indoor café and a small amusement arcade. Between the small sea retaining wall there is a wide promenade, a vehicle road and then a pavement before the grassy banks which rise at least fifty feet to sixty feet to the coast roadway above, There are a couple of long winding pathways and one very steep set of steps for the hardy walker. On the left is the northern pier which curves inwards narrowing the entrance to the river. There is the North East Diving Training establishment by the entrance to the pier.
On the right is the two storey Sunderland Sea Adventure centre and then an exceptionally busy fish and chips, snacks and ice cream take away with picnic tables where I stopped for a cool drink. I had already removed my sweat soaking shirt, using my jacket buttoned and where I mistakenly reattached its sleeves, and fortunately it had dried out in the sun before I heard the fog horn signalling that the sea mist was rolling in to an extent that the lighthouse marked he the edge of the vertical screen. On the inland journey parallel to the coast as I made my way to visit my mother, there was evidence that the mist continued to toll in and covered Whitburn but this was a temporary development and the warm sun continued until dusk.
Between the northern pier and a shorter breakwater which marks the end of the beach there is a beachside children's adventure play area partially encased in brightly decorated concrete to protect the equipment from the sea. The beach road continues for another fifty one hundred years with beach side car parking and a new private estate of terraced housing and flat blocks which will be re-explored as part of the marina area as there are interesting murals built into new walling as well as walkways around the marina basin on this of the river Wear
Yesterday I ended the lower promenade by walking around the new Lifeboat building up the steep winding roadway, stopping briefly to look along the road into the estate from where part of the marina and surrounding buildings can be seen, and then up to the roundabout junction where the coast road becomes the riverside road and leads onto the bridge across the river into the city centre. Across from the roundabout is the Queen Vic hotel and restaurant, with the same name as the Eastenders pub. This real life establishment does an excellent inexpensive roast lunch with a multiplicity of vegetables and is popular throughout the week. As a way of maintaining smoking customers an attractive outside area has been created. As the road way reaches the roundabout there is the old life boat building now shuttered and Victorians toilets which are kept in good working order and appearance. The last building is the small harbour view restaurant which has gone through several transformations and owners over my three decades here and attracts visitors by car and motorcycle although there is only space in front for a few vehicles as well as the more ambitious foot travellers as it is still a long walk from here into Sunderland centre and between two and three miles to Whitburn.
There is an unbroken terrace of flats, hotels and private three and four storey buildings from the roundabout until the roadway entrance to Roker Park. The Roker Hotel offered as many rooms as the Seaburn before its redevelopments, and has also gone through its own transformations and owners. There has always been a separate public dining establishment within the hotel which attracted visitors who were not staying at the hotel, and now there are two. A Chinese restaurant on the same level as the hotel bar restaurant, and an new Italian which provides a pleasant environment and good food at a lower level, and which also runs the beachside railway carriage restaurant at South Shields. I will go there for a happy hour meal before Winter.
The weather forecasters are promising more sunshine for a full weekend of sporting and music events. I have already discovered an band appearing at the Reading Carling festival tonight where I want to hear more, especially if they generate the same energy and excitement outside a festival arena, called Reverend and the Makers, The headline Act tonight is Razorlight whose music I also enjoy. Tomorrow the enormous Leeds festival begins. It is an early start for me tomorrow with Sunderland hosting Liverpool at the Stadium of Lights at 12.45. I misjudged the time for the first home game. I have been under the impression that Newcastle at the Boro was also on Saturday at 5.15 which would have shortened the hospital to visit to about an hour. It is on Sunday at 1.30 so I will do a late lunch. The sky was again a cloudless blue as I corrected and amended the writing before 8am having abandoned the task to concentrate on the physical charms of Penelope Cruz in Jamon Jamon
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