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April 2017

The Hadrian’s Wall Adventure (Part 3) – Haydon Bridge, Chesters Fort & Museum, Brunton Turret and Corbridge Roman Town

By Adventures, Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy, Life, NatureNo Comments

My friend Simon and I went back up to Hadrian’s Wall to continue our adventure following the Wall from one side of the country to the other, stopping at various sites of interest along the way.

We started this adventure last year in Cumbria. You can read about and see photos from last year in the The Hadrian’s Wall Adventure Part 1 and Part 2.

The day was dry and sunny, but it did get colder in the late afternoon. So here’s where we went, along with photos:

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Haydon Bridge.

 Haydon Bridge
Haydon Bridge is a village with an old bridge (photoed left) across River South Tyne. The village is very quaint and worth a short visit. Haydon Bridge is now a walk way, but would have been used as a crossing for people, horsemen and carts. Essential Info:

  • Free parking is available on roads in the village.
  • Public Toilets are free to use and on both sides of the bridge.
  • The village has several pubs, a chemist, a chippy, a Tandoori restaurant and some guest houses.
  • Recommended for a short visit. The bridge is the only thing of note that we saw.

We decided to stop at Hexham next. Hexham is a bigger village than Haydon Bridge, with an Abbey. However as we drove around the town centre looking for parking, all signage said Parking Disc Required, but no signage gave instructions or directions on how to get a parking disc. It was a busy Saturday afternoon, with some event on at the Abbey, so we decided to give Hexham a miss.

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Chesters Fort & Museum
Chesters Fort & Museum is magnificent and is a site maintained by English Heritage. It has loads to see and do including: the remains of a Fort and Bath House, a picnic area, spy holes that show where Hadrian’s Wall would have been (including across the North Tyne river), a brilliant museum full of stone works (statues, altars, depiction of Gods & Goddesses) and tools, weapons and jewellery, a gift shop, a tea room and toilets. The only downside to this fantastic attraction is that the cost of parking along with its reasonable admission price makes it an overall an expensive experience.

The signs dotted throughout the attraction are really informative and is probably the best example of signage throughout my entire Hadrian’s Wall Adventure adventure. For example, one sign read that about 500 horses and men would have been stationed at this Fort. The next sign read that a horse urinates and defecates 12KGS of waste a day. This was my Fact of the Day. Just think of all that waste, along with that of the humans.

Essential Info:

  • Remains of a Fort and Bath House.
  • Also includes a Museum, Picnic Area, Tea Room and Gift Shop.
  • Toilets available.
  • Highly Recommended.
  • Admission Price: £7.30 for an adult with gift aid (£6.60 without).
  • Opening Times: Vary throughout the year. View here.
  • Parking: Pay and Display at £3.00.

Here are photos from Chesters Fort & Museum:

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Chesters Fort (1) – 500 Horsemen would have lived in this Fort.
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Chesters Fort (2) – Remains of Stables.
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Chesters Fort (3) – Entrance Gatehouse.
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Chesters Fort (4) – Hadrian’s Wall will have run across the North Tyne river at this point. You can see the continuation of the Wall on the other side of the bank.
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Chesters Fort (5) – The Roman Baths.
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Chesters Fort (6) – The Roman Baths Porch.
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Chesters Fort (7) – The Roman Baths.
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Chesters Fort (8) – Presumably a trough for the horses to eat/drink from.
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Chesters Fort (8) – The Roman Baths, a cold bath.
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Chesters Fort (9) – The Roman Baths.
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Chesters Fort (10) – The Roman Baths Steam Room.
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Chesters Fort (11) – South East Angle Tower.
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Chesters Fort (12) – Possibly a storage room or stronghold.
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Chesters Fort (13) – A well in the main villa, which still had water in,
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Chesters Fort (14) – Flooring.
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Chesters Fort (15) – More flooring.
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Chesters Museum (1) – The Clayton Museum was a brilliant museum full of stone works (statues, altars, depiction of Gods & Goddesses), as well as tools, weapons and jewellery.
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Chesters Museum (2) – Entrance. Inside stone works lined each of the walls.
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Chesters Museum (3) – A headless statue of Juno Regina (Queen Juno). Apparently Queen Juno was one of the most important deities in Roman Religion, known as the protector and special counsellor of the state.
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Chesters Museum (4) – Various altars.

Then we drove through a village called Wall. After passing through Wall we saw signs for Brunton Turret.

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Brunton Turret
Brunton Turret is remains of a Turret that would have been one of many along Hadrian’s Wall. It’s in a famers field and there is a designated Parking place at the side of the road. It is a quick site to visit that will take you all of 5 minutes to walk to and see. Photos are below.

Essential Info:

  • Remains of a Turret and some of Hadrian’s Wall, in a farmers field.
  • Free parking is in designated space at the side of the road.
  • Well signposted.
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Brunton Turret (1) – Hadrian’s Wall.
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Brunton Turret (2) – Where the soldiers would have been stationed.
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Corbridge Roman Town – We chose not to go in, as it looked very similar to Chesters Fort & Museum which we had visited earlier in the day.

 Corbridge Roman Town
Corbridge Roman Town is another Roman Town, maintained by English Heritage. We opted not to visit this site, as it looked very similar to Chesters Fort & Museum. Essential Info:

  • Remains of a Roman Town.
  • Also includes a Museum, Picnic Area and Gift Shop.
  • Toilets available.
  • Admission Price: £7.20 for an adult with gift aid (£6.50 without).
  • Opening Times: Vary throughout the year. View here.
  • Free Parking on site.

Next year Simon and I plan to visit Newcastle to complete our tour across Hadrian’s Wall from one side of the country to the other.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 23 April 2017

Photos From My Local Park Today

By Happiness & Joy, NatureNo Comments

This week I’m off from work on annual leave. It has been a beautiful day – sunshiny with clouds. So I took the opportunity to visit my local park. It was great to feel the heat and light of the sun on my skin.

Here are some photos from my local park today:

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Photos from my local park today (1) – Duck Pond.
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Photos from my local park today (2) – Overview.
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Photos from my local park today (3) – War Memorial.
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Photos from my local park today (4) – Monument.
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Photos from my local park today (5) – Fountain.
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Photos from my local park today (6) – A Garden.
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Photos from my local park today (7) – How times have changed. My local park now has CCTV. They might be painted green, but they’re still CCTV.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Tuesday 18 April 2017

Book Review: The Dead Zone by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
The-Dead-Zone-Stephen-King-book-cover
View on Amazon.co.uk
 In The Dead Zone John Smith wakes up from a 4 year coma with the ability to see the past and the future of the people he touches.

Some people see this ability as a gift from God. But for John, he sees it as a curse.

It all started 4 years ago when John, a Teacher, took his date Sarah, also a Teacher, to the Fair.

John is also known as Johnny in The Dead Zone and these names will be used interchangeably throughout this review.

All was going well until John tried his luck on The Wheel of Fortune. The first time he wins. Then the second and third time to. Again and again he wins. He just can’t loose, despite his head feeling like somebody is going at it with a jack hammer.

Continued below…

Meanwhile Sarah has become ill and is being violently sick after eating a bad hot dog. Johnny takes Sarah home and then calls a taxi.

Johnny’s taxi journey home is where it all goes wrong. A car driving on the wrong side of the road crashes into the taxi at speed, causing the deaths of the boy driving the car on the wrong side of the road and the taxi driver. John is propelled out of the taxi through the windshield and goes into a coma.

When Johnny wakes up, he discovers that everything has changed. His body is weak, despite being exercised with physiotherapy while he was comatose. His mind has a Dead Zone, a microscopic part of his brain that has been damaged. This Dead Zone causes him not to be able to imagine certain things and is perhaps also causing his new found ability to see people’s past and future by touching them.

John’s father seems to have dramatically aged much more than the 4 years that has passed. His mother who was always a religious woman, has become fervent religionist. Sarah is now married to another man and has a child.

As Johnny works hard to recover and rebuild his life. As he does so, he makes some startlingly accurate predictions including: finding the location of his Doctor’s lost mother, preventing a fire from becoming serious in his Physiotherapists house, telling Sarah where her lost wedding ring is, identifying a serial murderer and predicting a serious fire caused by lightening. Johnny soon makes news with his predictions and rides out the media storms the best he can.

Johnny doesn’t really want any of this. He just wants a normal life and more importantly the normal life the car accident robbed him of. But he knows that this is not possible. Too much has changed.

Johnny does various bits of work and creates a little hobby of shaking politician’s hands to see the future of election results. That is until he shake that hand of Greg Stillson. John sees Stillson becoming President and what a dangerous one he’ll be.

John becomes obsessed with Stillson and starts getting head-splitting headaches. John finds himself debating whether he would kill Hitler if time travel was possible. He decides that he would and that the same action needs to be taken to prevent Stillson from ever becoming President.

Every element of The Dead Zone was excellent and enjoyable. The description pulls the reader into the story from the beginning and until the end. The characters were charming, cunning and crafty. Johnny was particularly appealing and interesting, with the reader feeling for and relating to this character from the start of the book.

The plot was intriguing, fascinating and full of unpredictable, but perfectly pleasant twists and turns. The pacing was perfect at all times and felt like a car with cruise control doing 70MPH on the motorway.

The only tiny criticism of The Dead Zone was John’s name. John Smith. The story makes clear from the outset that John is an average guy, who happens to have something that’s both bad and brilliant happen to him. So using such a common place name to represent that he’s an average guy was not required. It stuck me as either lazy or uninventive on King’s behalf.

The Dead Zone is without any doubt a King classic. The Dead Zone is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Sunday 16 April 2017

Book Review: Insomnia by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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View on Amazon.co.uk
 Insomnia is the story of Ralph, an old man who starts suffering with insomnia after the death of his wife.

Each morning Ralph wakes up earlier and earlier. Then he starts seeing the world in more vivid colour than he ever thought was possible – as he begins to see auras. For Ralph seeing auras can be beautiful and enlightening, but it can be awful and even grotesque.

Ralph thinks he is alone in his suffering with insomnia and his sensing of auras. That is until he confides in his friend Lois. Lois discloses that she has been experiencing the same. Ralph and Lois work out that when they see the auras they are going up to a higher plane of existence.

While Ralph is on this higher plane he sees a little odd alien-looking man wearing a white coat and with a scalpel in his hand. The man is after street dog. Ralph interferes and the man calls Ralph a short-timer and threatens him. This man turns out to be working for the higher power of Random.

Ralph and Lois then meet two other little odd alien-looking men wearing white coats, one carrying a pair of scissors in his hand. These men are working for the higher power of Purpose. The men recruit Ralph and Lois to save the life of a child, as the child will be important in the future. Ralph and Lois agree to help the men, as they maybe able to save the lives of thousands of people, including that of their friend Helen and her daughter Natalie.

But Random have recruited Helen’s husband Ed, well before Ralph and Lois became involved.

Both of the higher powers of Random and Purpose are fighting for their own causes, with their own bigger pictures in mind and the stakes are high. But these reasons are unknown and perhaps incomprehensible to Ralph and Lois as short-timers.

The description in Insomnia is exquisitely and perfectly crafted. It allows the reader imagine everything that Ralph and Lois sees, hears, touches, tastes and smells (in all senses of the words).

The plot is endlessly inventive, expertly executed, riveting and dealing with life and death and everything in-between.

The pacing is much slower than any of King’s books that I have previously read. At times during the reading it felt as though the pacing slowed to a belly crawl. But the slower pace did suit main character Ralph, an Old Age Pensioner (OAP) and one that is severely deprived of sleep.

Insomnia is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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Saturday 15 April 2017
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