Day out at Newcastle Quayside

Like the rest of the UK, we’ve been enjoying glorious weather here in Newcastle for the past fortnight.  Last weekend, we were able to make the most of it; as I mentioned previously, we were celebrating Geth’s birthday a couple of weeks late, and so on Saturday we went into town for some shopping and food, interspersed with a visit to our favourite beer garden seeing as how it was so nice.

Bridges of the Tyne
View of the bridges of the Tyne from the Free Trade Inn beer garden.

We were fairly lucky to get a space in the Free Trade Inn beer garden – it was a hot Saturday afternoon, which is a rarity, and so the people of Newcastle were out in force in the centre of town – but we did manage it, and Geth immediately made a start on the bar snacks.

Free Trade Inn beer garden
Geth with beer and some kind of pasty/samosa/thing? I wasn’t really paying attention.

I’m not quite sure what’s going on with the light in these pictures – I blame the sun.  Clearly my smartphone camera has become accustomed to British weather and can’t cope with bright light!

Free Trade Inn beer garden
Enjoying the heat! Also very pleased with the way my new Punk Masters T-shirt matches my tattoo.

We’d got all our shopping done fairly efficiently, so we were able to enjoy a good few hours in the sun before our restaurant booking.

Pints of beer and cider
I actually like plastic glasses, even if they’re not very solid to hold – they feel like summer to me!

We then headed to Uno’s Trattoria, one of our favourite Italian restaurants in Newcastle, which Geth had selected for his birthday meal.

Geth with birthday meal
Geth had been looking forward to that pork belly for weeks.

The reason Geth chose Uno’s Trattoria is that, for the last year or so, they’ve had pork belly on the menu, which is one of his favourite foods.  Apparently most Italian restaurants don’t cook meat dishes properly (being a vegetarian I’m generally unaware of these things), but this restaurant must be an exception, as the pork belly went down very well.

Pork belly
Just looks like meat to me, but I’m informed it was very special meat!

I, meanwhile, went for my favourite Italian restaurant treat of pizza:

Rocket and parmesan pizza
That rocket and parmesan topping was immense.

We also had dessert – we both went for the white chocolate cheesecake – but we were so keen to get stuck into it that I forgot to take a picture.

A lovely day out overall.  Happily the weather has continued, and it looks like it’ll be similar this weekend – so we’ll need to take it carefully when running the Great North 10k on Sunday!

New addition to my flower tattoo

As promised…

Iris tattoo
The newest bit of the ever-growing flower garden on my arm.

I had an iris flower added to my collection, coming down onto my forearm.  What I absolutely love is that my old butterfly tattoo from 2002 had a reworking!  It wasn’t the best quality tattoo in the world to begin with, and after sixteen years it had become a bit of a blur:

Old butterfly tattoo
Yes, that was a butterfly once upon a time.

My arm as a whole is looking pretty floral now:

Floral arm tattoo
All the flowers and insects! I’m so happy with this piece.

Thanks to Raven at Sakura Tattoo for my flower garden.  I’m sure I’ll be in again when the tattoo itch next strikes…

Post-tattoo tiredness

So I finally had the not-so-badly-timed-after-all tattoo appointment this afternoon.  I have a beautiful new addition to my arm piece that I will be telling you all about tomorrow, after I’ve cleaned it up and taken some pictures.

I’m super happy with it but also super tired now – three hours around the elbow will do that.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get a nice early night and a good sleep after a few days of staying up late.

Groundhog Day

So, I was all set for the world’s worst timed tattoo appointment!  I had plenty of water to drink and some chocolate to make sure my blood sugar levels were good.  I got all my stuff done (housework, work emails, TV catchup, watching the Groundhog Day live feed from Punxutawney – six more weeks of winter, apparently, though I’m not 100% sure how accurate these predictions are for Punxutawney, let alone the rest of the Northern Hemisphere).  I had my idea for the tattoo addition all ready in my head, and then I paced up and down for the last twenty minutes before I had to leave the house, and then I bumped into Geth on the way out to the tattoo parlour and was able to catch up about his morning at work for a minute, and then I went to the cash machine and got cash out to pay for the tattoo.

And then I went to the tattoo parlour, and my tattooist realised she’d put the wrong date on my appointment slip.  It’s actually next Tuesday.

At least I was able to start Non-Dry February a few hours earlier than planned.  New cider posts coming soon!