I spent today catching up with my long-long term friend Andrew. We've known each other since junior school and considering we have both turned 50 this year, that's a long time. With my being away south now we tend to catch up as much as we can, usually though we are with other people. So today it was a treat for the two of us to just have an afternoon alone, just like old times. He had to take his mother to hospital in the morning so after that he and I hot footed it to the Sage in Gateshead, the North East's premier music venue. I like it here very much as it symbolises how the region has gone from being vibrant but essentially dominated by heavy industry and mining to a multi-cultural sink for new industry and culture. The Newcastle-Gateshead landscape is possibly the best in Britain after London and Edinburgh. After all where else in one afternoon could one find, Crème Scotch Eggs (with our associated footwear in vision), a concourse offering free acoustic music, a millennium 'eye' bridge that opens for a passing sailing ship or a view along a river steeped in history but modernised.
In the evening after more chat to my parents and some food, Andrew and I denizened the Grey Horse public house in East Boldon. It was from here that on Friday nights of old the teenage Andrew and I, plus associated hangers on, would arrive to celebrate the weekend. It has never changed, except tonight I could walk home as my parents now only live 200 metres away along Front Street.
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