Monthly Archive

I’ve noticed a slowing recently of many of the blogs I’ve read for years.

It seems that some of the first wave of bloggers are running out of steam. While Facebook might claim to be the “new thing” I prefer to see it instead as a changing of the guard.

I wrote Space Hardware angry. I wrote Our Man in Hanoi in wonder. And I wrote Our Man in Granada with a vague ambition of making cash from writing.

Now here I am writing Our Man in Newcastle.

In the last few weeks I have been sorting out my life. I have all those things now that I fled from when I moved to Hanoi.

I’ve a flat. A new job about to start. A car again.

Most importantly of all my partner, herself new to Newcastle, has joined me. I’m back in normality.

I believe that normality for me is a holiday in itself. This isn’t it for ever. Just for now. The strain of Nicaragua has made me appreciate this normality. Just as much as tropical heat has made me appreciate the cold. I will enjoy both.

Just as I will enjoy gigs, football matches, the theatre, fish and chip shops, family, movies and work.

I am also aware that normality doesn’t make for great blogging. It’s not entertaining reading and it doesn’t inspire me to write. When I was in Hanoi my blog went quiet when life was bad. There is nothing worse than moaning on a blog. Likewise, now, contentment just reads as smug.

But life is good. This isn’t goodbye just notice that I am no longer angry. I’m settling. I am no longer sharing my wonders or woes. Likewise I’m not searching for links nor hits.

So do check back sporadically. I will update occasionally. Maybe mostly with new pics. Or you can simply check out my Flickr.

Also know that as long as I am quiet then I am content.

Life is good.

Pics taken earlier this week at Whitley Bay.  Full set here.

I’d often wondered about this dilapidated pool on Tynemouth beach.

Pre the bout of research that I am just about to divulge, I assumed it was some ancient relic that had been used by conservative Victorian ladies in even more conservative attire.

Turns out it was in use as late as the seventies. If I am not mistaken 1976 was something of a heatwave. Check out the fabulous first film below of the pool in full use that year. The beach looks more like Spain than the UK. And look at those crowds.

Did we just get soft after we discovered holidays abroad? I can’t comprehend swimming in the north sea now but I spent most of my school holidays, up the coast at Hauxley. I don’t even remember it being particularly cold.

Or was the ‘76 heatwave enough to transform Tynemouth into Tenereife for one season only?

Now? Well apparently in 1996 some genius had the idea of filling it with rocks and making it into a rock pool. I can only assume that it had already fallen into disrepair and no cash was available to keep it open for swimming. Either way it seems like an extraordinarily bad idea.

Anyway, enjoy the films below plus this gem of a link from the year I was born, which has it all (glamour, kitsch and Malcolm Macdonald).

And here’s an even earlier film from the sixties. It’s all making me feel quite nostalgic.

Just in case anyone has been following the job saga.  The good news is I am now gainfully employed and expect to start soon.

I don’t know what I was flapping about.

I got a shock when I was walking around town the other day.  What did they just do?

So I snapped it with my phone and I was about to write about how the Lego men of Newcastle’s Haymarket, and my blog banner, were being demolished.

But then it turns out they’re just taking a break.

While digging around and trying to follow the whole timeline of the less than popular sculptures, there was suggestions that they’d see out their days in Exhibition Park.  But apparently not. They’re coming back.

However, I was concerned that I had bestowed bad luck upon them.  Maybe their demolition, albeit temporary, is the Our Man blog curse.  Let’s hope Ho Chi Minh’s tomb and Conventino San Francisco fair better.

* Found the pic below while Googling around.  Yes everything does look better in black and white.  For non British people - it’s a football thing.  Pic found here.

I got a text late last night.

Would I like to come to my niece’s third birthday party?

I agreed. It was only later than I realised the significance of the date.

You see, my beautiful niece was born while I was in the skies on my way to Vietnam. I actually checked my email in Singapore before the last leg. There it was. I was an uncle for the first time and my VSO stint was about to begin.

Three years on I am now an uncle four times over. Hanoi and Granada are behind me and I’m back in the North East of England.

In the meantime I have enjoyed the time of my life. It would be too contrived to say I am a different person. But anyone would change to some degree under the same circumstances.

I now know what it is to feel lucky. It was a sentiment I’d voiced before my trip, without ever really meaning it. It’s not just that I have more than most people in developing countries, it’s how hard they work to get just a fraction of my relative riches. My life has been easy.

Settling back down in the North East, I’m in the process of moving into a somewhat cosy little flat. I’m buying a small, second hand car. Hardly high living.

Talking about “what next” we’ve discussed getting back to normality.

But normality will never really be normal again. Even our fairly frugal existence, we reminded ourselves, will feel like luxury.

Just as the adventure was so fantastical, much of what I took for granted back in the UK will now be enjoyed with a new wonder and gratitude.

Three years on, I even feel lucky to feel lucky.

* By chance I also received an email today from a blog reader who had seen the video below and she told me that it inspired her enough to sit her kids down to watch it too. I watched it once more and despite wincing at my own horrific voice over, it made me smile all over again. I hope that what I experienced in Hanoi will never ever leave me.

There is still nothing concrete on the job front. I’m still unemployed.

However, wheels do seem to be in motion. I can be relatively confident that, by this time next week, my future employment-wise should be settled.  All in all I am feeling a lot more optimistic than after my first attempt to get back into the UK workforce.

Anyway, earlier this week, as I tired of sitting around waiting for job news, I took myself off for a walk in Tynemouth .  One of the best features of having spent so long away from your own region is discovering it all again.  It might be easy to write all this off as schmaltz, but I had honestly never realised just how beautiful the North East is.

The pics above and below were taken as I wandered.  The full set is here.