Guided tours

My parents came up to visit me for the first time in four years and so it was my job to play tour guide for the weekend. It was good in that I got to revisit some fantastic places as well as see some of the sights that I should have seen by now but haven’t got around to. That is probably the best thing about showing people around a place that they have never visited before, you see things that you otherwise take for granted.

I got to explore the Northumberland coastline again. The wife introduced me to this part of the world when we first met and I would imagine that this is the most beautiful part of the British coast. The difference this time was that it was bank holiday and everywhere was so busy (and it lacks the romanticism – showing the parents is not the same as being shown by a new lover). I was however well fed and got a tank full of petrol paid for!

I think that I did manage to make my parents see why I am happy to settle here. Many people, my parents included tend to have this pre-conceived idea that this is the poor end of the country overrun with poverty and in decline since to the loss of the mining and ship building industries in the 1980's. They seem to have gone home with a different view and have realised that this is actually a pretty good place to live. I now need another long weekend to recover, instead it is the final push to get my thesis finished and submitted a.s.a.p. then perhaps the wife and I can get back to our normal way of life and spend some more time in these fantastic places.