I have a rest day looking around Newcastle. People don't seem to ever mention quite how handsome Newcastle is. The high bridges, grand avenues and then the odd piece of brutalist and modernist architecture - a great city.
I catch up with my pal Frances and then set off north in the morning.
Past the university and then the fancy areas of Jesmond and Gosforth. Loads of people come up and chat to me in street.
Leaving the main road head towards the village of Dinnington near the airport.
Dinnington is pretty unremarkable however over to the west is affluent Ponteland where Alan Shearer and Peter Beardsley live. Also nearby is village of Meldon which has the distinction of being a "Thankful Village" which means that they suffered no fatalities during the First World War. There are only 53 parishes in Britain which can claim the title of a Thankful Village (of these 14 are doubly thankful as they also suffered no fatalities in the Second World War).
The countryside around here is pretty unremarkable.
I pass under electricity cables which crackle and hum in the drizzle and by a watertower to the edge of Morpeth.
