North East thread 6: Everyone's welcome!

[Someaddedsugar]

Just starting a new thread for anyone who wants to join!

Yup that’s the bus and stand I used. The old blokes were so canny

@PickAChew it slipped my mind for a while that you have given birth to your very own bus expert

Anyone get the Lumiere tickets? I’m just going to look at other people’s photos.
I just can’t be bothered, the wait for the ‘Count’s house’ last year was the final straw. 😆

He even has his own Flickr full of them, @TheSummerySilveryPussycat 😁

DH grabbed us some lumiere tickets. He’ll definitely take DS2 but I don’t know if I can be bothered. There’s always too much weather, when it’s on.

I went to the first two Lumieres but my best Lumiere ever was in 2013 when me and my newly acquired Lovely Man went roving round Durham the evening before, while the artwork was still being installed. We ended up on Palace Green with literally about 20 other local folk, watching the run-through of the light show projected on the Cathedral, which went perfectly. An utterly joyous evening

They had to change how it was done after the first few Lumieres. With no one-way system, it became obvious that it was only a matter of time before a crush accident happened

I haven't done Lumiere yet. Is is always very busy?

Yes, quite busy. Especially at the pinch points.
But was miserable the year it rained. But definitely worth it.
I’ve done everyone, the best were the first one Free glow stick, lol. Then next time free torch key ring from Sky. I still have key ring, lol.
Best to use the Park and Ride buses. And hopefully bus station will be finished 🤣

I think the bus station is competing with the new metro fleet for slowest implementation, @AlviarinAesSedai 🙄

How long has it taken @PickAChew ?
It’s also an ugly building, all that money and it looks shit. It’s on a par with the disaster of new milburngate.
God knows when that will be finished.

More than 3 years. They closed the old one at the very start of the pandemic. The bigger, more complex one in South Shields, that opened just before the pandemic went up pretty quickly.

When I first came here, the bus station was elegant, and made from cast iron, I think. AFAIK, Beamish Museum, then in its infancy, came and carefully disassembled it. But I don't know if they ever re-assembled it at Beamish.

It's totally wild outside today. Really not looking forward to heading out to work - the lanes to the farm are bad enough on a nice day!

You'll be getting the worst of the wind where you are, too @QuestionableMouse .

I've been watching the botched, rotten fence next door slowly shake itself apart. It was in pieces and crumbling and the builders nailed it back together and painted it. Landlord charging about 1400pcm for someone to have the pleasure of living in such a shoddily renovated house. Hopefully the roof isn't leaking.

The Wear is holding out, for now. No idea if it's been higher overnight but I see no piles of pop bottles.

Great picture, @PickAChew .
Doesn’t make Durham attractive. Ugly brick buildings.
At least it’s stopped raining for now. Driving home yesterday was scary, roads flooded.

Is the cormorant colony still there? They used to roost on logs, which caught on the weir.

When I came up to Durham 53 years ago, Dunelm House aka The Dunelm had won an award. Kingsgate Bridge had recently won an award. (Also St. Aidan's, The Hand on the Hill, but Basil Spence had designed an excellent and good-looking building, in nice construction materials.) At 18, I thought Kingsgate (to an extent), and the Dunelm in particular, were concrete monstrosities, but I grew to love them. I would prefer they painted them a nice soft white, instead of insisting we have to look at bare concrete

As a Londoner, who now belongs Durham, I can hardly believe how new tall buildings with little architectural merit have changed some parts of Central London almost beyond recognition. So much so that they just don't feel to me like London any more

Is anyone West Auckland/Spring Gardens way? How is the River Gaunless holding up?

@SinnerBoy not sure how many a colony is. But there is often about 2-3 cormorants. They sit on the weir ledges.
We have some very noisy geese and a pair of swans 🦢.

@TheSummerySilveryPussycat , we have to disagree Dunelm House is ugly. I also think the Palatine building is ugly as fuck too.
I follow a pictures of Durham past on Facebook and you use to be able to actually see the castle and cathedral driving down into Durham. Now when waiting on North Road for the bus. You could be anywhere.

@TheSummerySilveryPussycat pleased you call Durham home.

Wow the river is really high isn't it! DP said there were a few roads closed on his way to Bishop Auckland yesterday.

We seem to have missed the worst of it being further south than you guys. Lots of wind but not as much rain.

There was a tree down between Darlington and bishop closing the roads. A big tree down In west cemetery but the skern seems fine as it was dredges not long ago. Fields at the farm are very flooded though

I fell for Durham in June 1970 when I came up for interview. County Durham is one of the biggest loves of my life. Many of my student friends also ended up staying here. Also loads of people in the 1970s came here for the alternative life-style (food co-ops etc) which managed to keep going right into the 1980s.

As to the Dunelm, remember I spent 6 years as a student here 1970-76, so it has a lot of memories for me. I still think you might like it if it was painted white. The shapes and how they are put together work as architecture. But nobody leaves their living room walls as bare plaster! It has always looked visually unfinished.

Lots of bare concrete and plaster on Grand Designs 😂

I'm quite certain that the replacement for Prince bishops will be even blander than the current buildings. At least they have that twee 1990s charm. I quite liked the brutalist lines of the old passport office but I'm sure the reality of the building was much different to the freshly bult aesthetic.

Was glad to manage a bit of a walk of my own, this morning. I was so unwell with my first bad cold since before the pandemic that I couldn't face it earlier in the week as I was getting out of breath but my hips were aching and needed to be moved, yesterday. I didn't go far but do feel better for it.

Lots of bare concrete and plaster on Grand Designs 😂

It's not that bad when it's new. Give it a decade or two. Concrete weathers.