The trailer for Eclipse has JUST been released in the last couple of hours – I am absolutely stoked.  More than that, I am IN LOVE and so, so happy that it looks to be one of the best yet, despite Eclipse not being my favourite of the four-book saga.

See the clip, in HD, here!

If you drive into Newcastle on the A189 or the A167, take the turn off at the Town Moor and follow the road, down Barrack Road and then past St. James (the home of Newcastle United FC) and park somewhere in the vicinity of Terrace Place or Strawberry Place you are within a couple of hundred feet of the most lovely park any city knows.  Leazes Park.

Long before I moved up to Newcastle I loved the music of one non-native Geordie, Kathryn Williams.  Her first album’s title “Dog Leap Stairs” was a reference to a set of very old stone stairs in the centre of Newcastle.  On that album was a song called “Leazes Park“.  I listened to the song and imagined the park.  When I finally came to visit it in real life, years later, I could imagine exactly what she saw when she wrote the song.  In many ways that album was a love-song to this city.

Leazes Park is an immense Victorian park, with proper, solid iron fences painted black, pavillions, bandstands and a boating lake.  It’s right next to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (the RVI), one of 3 very good hospitals in the area, an imposing and typically-Victorian edifice with a beautiful mansard roof.  In the centre of a city which can be noisy, dirty and hectic, this is a perfect little oasis.

I have become very fond of this park in the years that we’ve lived here.  Whether in spring, summer, autumn or the depths of winter it is still very beautiful and nothing can make you feel at peace like a walk in a park.  I’ve been there under grey skies and blue, rain and sun, hail and thunder and it is still just as magical.  Today I was lucky, it was the warmest day we’ve has this year for us – a balmy +9ºC – and after doing a little shopping I took myself and my camera out of the city centre and on a 5 minute walk which would take me to Leazes Park.  Past Edwardian grandure and Georgian splendour, past the metal constructs of St. James and the ugly 60s wing of the RVI.  Past my favourite Moroccan restaurant.

The birds were singing, the sun was shining and it was warm.  People were playing basketball on the courts below, whilst I walked on the circular path up to the boating lake.  On this lake live Canada geese, swans, tufted ducks, black-headed gulls, moorhens and coots.  Whether it be people with prams, joggers, walkers, visitors, the tired or simply the curious, it seems in nice weather everyone comes to congregate here (there is a sneek-peak of the park on GoogleMaps).  I sat down and enjoyed watching the swans hiss at those who came too close, the feeding-frenzy that a slice of white bread could create and the budding branches moving with a breath of wind.

Seeing the crocuses dotted randomly over the leaf litter beside the paths, brought a smile to my face as I remembered how much they looked like the description of “the meadow” in Twilight.  Today it was really magical.  I don’t think the two girls illicitly smoking on the benches, the guy in the sharp pin-striped business suit or the group playing basketball really noticed just how beautiful and lucky they are to be there in that moment, living in such a beautiful, happy place – even if only for a short while.

Easily as beautiful as the Parc de Belleville in Paris, it has a different feel. And different too than the grand Champ de Mars or the parks in London. It’s homely, it’s not threatening. You can see the Georgian houses sitting in front of the vast metalwork of St. James and then the trees in the foreground – a medly.

On a side-note:
This is my 600th post and it is also the one post I’ve wanted to blog since I first found Leazes Park.  I will have been blogging here for 5 years in April, and how time has flown.  I cannot believe I was merely 19 at the time.  It seems like a lifetime ago, the way time flies.  Happy, happy memories.  Many of them.  Here’s to the next 600.

{A presque l’âge de déraisonner – Almost at the age of unreason}

Last weekend was great.  My friends and I teetered (well, I teetered as I was the only one in our group in heels) into town, partied hard, visited every club possible and then slumped into our taxis at an ungodly hour.  It was fantastic.  I am going to miss my friends so much when I move.  I don’t get hangovers, for whatever reason my body seems to be ok after a wild night out so I woke up early feeling better and more refreshed than I had for ages.

I decided fairly early on Sunday that as the sun was out in force and the weather was not only mild but verging on warm(!), I would head out to the beach.  My beach of choice was Warkworth, and by the time I’d done my compulsory house chores and driven to Warkworth it was already gone 12pm.  For the first time since last Summer the roads were full.  Cars lined the A1068 – from Alnmouth to Newbiggin-By-The-Sea it was full of people wanting to do the same as myself – find some solace on the beach.

Whilst I didn’t find much in the way of solace, I did find shells and sand, lots of both.  I walked, I listened to my iPod (see song below – it is very lovely) and then to the waves, I saw Eider ducks and watched children playing football.  It was cold in the shadows but wonderfully warm in the sun and I felt the blue skies and rays of sun lifting my mood.  I hold onto these moments a lot now.

I have had a lot of time to think recently and I am re-assessing my life.  What I want and what I don’t.  I marvel at the woman I am now to the girl I was back when I moved up here 5 1/2 years ago.  I have changed my mind on a lot of things and also my priorities, too.  I didn’t think I’d ever survive without Mr. VP being at my side but not only am I managing to cope with a house, a job and two cats – I have had late nights out and caught my first taxi, I’ve danced the night away and laughed on 4 hours sleep.  Being alone has taught me a lot.  That’s not to say I don’t miss him a lot, but I am more able to cope, because I’ve had to.

Anyway, pictures.  I loved all of the shells I found.  Small purple-banded beauties to large, thick-shelled affairs which had seen a lot of the sea.  Limpets and little topshells littered the sandy shore.  Dunes, grass, sand, blue skies, white fluffy clouds, planes flying low over the beach, time to think, time to write.

Sunday was a Good Day.  I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a good day, too.

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Now playing: John Mayer – Assassin

Without taking you into the complex inner-workings of my mind right now, I can tell you it’s a dark place at the moment.  However it is not without the pretty, rainbow-faceted bits, too.  I find easy reasons to smile when the sun comes out, as it did for small stretches today, just enough to illuminate the south-facing aspects of the house; casting long, sharp rays of light onto the rug, the carpet and the walls (and also the cats who ran to these sunbeams and luxuriated).  Perhaps my vitamin D is lacking, but I felt like I needed that exposure, however slight.

The clouds have now come back and it looks like it’s going to start raining soon.  The thing I crave the most are the long Spring and Summer evenings, when I can leave the house after work (or go straight from work) to the beach and, maybe with a picnic maybe not, walk along the coastline watching the sky turn as the sun disappeared lower and lower down onto the horizon.  Though the sun doesn’t go down into the sea here (you’d need to be on the West for that, obviously) the darkness creeping in from the sea is quite a majestic, twilight-inducing affair.  Almost as magical as a sunset itself.

Talking of sunsets, here’s a gratuitous shot of a sunset in Lincolnshire.  That’s Lincoln cathedral in the distance, on a day that can only be described as sub-arctic.

I really have had enough of winter now.  To make myself feel better I went out and bought myself a whole new outfit, with shoes (high heels, believe it or not) and I will be wearing my new ensemble tomorrow as I am scheduled a Very Late Night Out with some friends from work.  There will be dancing, clubs pubs and bars, and a late-night early morning taxi ride home.  I am looking forward to this for a multitude of reasons, more than anything though when I am a bit tipsy and dancing along to some dance music I don’t have to think for a while.  I just have to concentrate on staying upright, learning how to walk in my new high heels (and hoping that I don’t break a heel like I did the last time) and having a jolly good time.

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Now playing: Muse – Hyper Chondriac Music

P.s.  I finished reading book four in the Twilight series last night.  I hung on until the bitter end and slipped into a Twilight-filled sleep at around 2am – much as I have been doing for the last week.  I now have a twilight-shaped void and I am duly bereft.  So what does an avid Twilighter do?  She starts at book one and re-reads the lot.  If/ when you do come to read Breaking Dawn, try listening to the above song for the last couple of chapters.  I listened to the above song, on a perpetual loop for about 3 hours – more than just a couple of chapters – because I couldn’t get the song out of my head.  It works really well with the context.  The sad thing was, that as I came to re-watch Twilight earlier today, I stared at the screen in dis-belief at how lacking the film was in comparison to the book.  I know that’s always the way, and I do like the films, but the books sing in magnificent colours whereas the films barely skim the surface.

I am at a humungous crossroads.  Life never comes in slow, even waves.  It piles up and comes all at once.

The move.

The job.

The house.

Working.

The father who turns up out of the blue after 10 years.

There are times when I want to become a mute.  I want to retract and not listen, to not speak.  It is all a little too much right now.

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Now playing (my turmoil music): Kate Havnevik – New Day