If you get the chance you should try to get too.......oh and an unexpected visitor!

This is probably a bit of a long shot, but if you are up in either Newcastle or Gateshead there are currently two fantastic exhibitions at the Baltic Mill art gallery on the banks of the Tyne. 

A friend and I headed up to visit on Friday for the weekend, and no visit to Newcastle is complete without a visit to the Baltic Mill, so Saturday morning ish was the time decided upon.  

Just getting there is an adventure! From the city centre there is a long wander down to the quayside, well it is a long way down, and from there across the Millennium Bridge, a spectacular piece of architecture that spans the Tyne and ends just outside the Baltic.

At the moment the artists being displayed are Anselm Kiefer, Dan Holdsworth and Dirk Bell. Whilst I am not a hugely artistic person and I am a proper Yorkshireman......I know what I like (and I like what I bloody say!).  Dirk Bell is a German, who I have to say I had no idea what his art was trying to identify or symbolise, although Anselm Kiefer, a fellow German's pieces were really spectacular. I will not try and tell anyone what to enjoy or what the pictures were representing to me, but for me I really loved his pieces "Urd Werdande Skuld (The Norns) 1983",  "Man under a Pyramid 1996" and "Lilith 1987-9".

Not the Baltic but rather the Sage, but just loved the photograph.

The other artist whose work was fantastic is Dan Holdsworth's "Blackout" Collection, in which he displays slow processed photographs of glaciers, providing fantastic images of almost extra-terrestrial intensity. The Baltic is such that you can spend a couple of hours wandering around without melting your brain, but which can be real food for the soul.

I would also like to tell you about my surprise visitor........we were staying at a friend's house in Jesmond. After a night out on the quayside......a real experience! and several drinks in a bar that I was advised was owned by "Ant n Dec" we headed back to the house, to find a cat on the doorstep.Well at 3 a.m. with no-one around to let him in next door, he let himself into the communal hallway. Thinking nothing more of it, we got into the flat, headed to our rooms. This was until about 4 a.m. when this arrived on my chest....well the photograph was taken in the morning, but he was a very bonnie laddie, who ended up needling my chest all night ( I really couldn't be ar*ed to get up and let him out!)

Cabin Fever!

I apologise again as the posts recently have not been as prolific as previously, and there is no justifiable reason, but I realised that there is only so much that you could say about the snow.

To anyone who doesn't live in the UK, I apologise, but snow here is usually a pretty huge thing (well to be honest talking about the weather is a national past-time, along with queuing......and despite the fact that we usually have weeks of notice the whole country seems to come to stop. It's amazing to see supermarket shelves empty as though the end of the world was approaching, how trains and buses freeze up, and apparently no effort is made to clear any of the snow around from the roads or pavements.

This was particularly true this last week with a dump of several inches of snow on Tuesday.....and some more on Wednesday....oh and some more throughout the rest of the week. Having bravely made it across to Manchester on Tuesday I was advised by my boss that it may be better to work from home on Wednesday (I have to say it not the type of advice that I usually need twice.....any excuse not to get up at 5:00am to commute to work is always welcomed!) But as the snow continued to fall it became impossible to travel across to work on Thursday or Friday (including the office Christmas party which was to be the crowning point of the year so far!). This has meant that i have had to look for any excuse to get out of the house, even if it was only for an hour no matter whether snow was avalanching from the roof tops, just to avoid the inevitable cabin fever.......it got to the point that by about 3:30 on most afternoons that even the dog was bored of listening to my conversation.

Trips out became a life saver......a walk down to a fantastic coffee shop for a latte (oh and to check out the crimbo lights on Newland Avenue), a trip to pick up a pint of milk, and can I also introduce you to Si the Skiing Snowman (yeah my Sister and I decided to regress......just a little bit, and to make a snowman)

Sadly (well maybe) the snow seems to be, if not thawing, then certainly not falling anymore, so it's back to work tomorrow. Am I upset? Not as much as I thought I would be!