Purple fringes: The North

Cathedral Church of St Mary, Newcastle
March 2012

In England, on the main highway, M1, there exist enormous sign boards that label each direction "The North", or "The South"
.. as if daring the driver to get lost

I was in the North last week for work, Yorkshire to be precise
(anything north of the midlands is called "The North")
on Sunday, i was casually thrown the question, if i'd like to go to Newcastle
and so we went

it was sunny, the first day of unadulterated sunshine in months
the greens of the countryside dazzled against blue skies and i really wanted to take pictures
but alas, I was travelling light, fed up with lugging luggages around the world, so i had no Nikon SLR
and my HTC doesn't do so well on moving trains

after gorging ourselves on a chinese buffet, we wandered around the city centre;
the wind chill keeping us from venturing too far
and came across the War Memorial
The Response touched me - a sculpture depicting families saying goodbye as soldiers answered the call of World War I

When wars erupt, and soldiers are sent to fight the "other side"
we often forget that they're just like us, that they have families too ..
someone waiting for them to come home
and just because they're soldiers, it doesn't make them any less human, or any more callous
...

next to the War Memorial is the Church of St Thomas the Martyr

The clock on the church tower seems to be accurate, but i remember another clock nearby was a few hours out
it was at this point that we got driven into the shopping mall by the cold
we probably lasted an hour in there, bored out of our minds, until we emerged again
and thankfully there was sunshine
we agreed that we had to sit outside

i picked this cafe because it was not a chain
don't you just love the lace work of the verandah?