We met Carole and Kevin in about 2005 when we were still in the first flush of our Italian adventure and they were running a holiday letting business.  We've always associated them with Italy and were frequent visitors to their trullo complex in Puglia and later to their townhouse in Nocera Umbra, to which they returned after it had been renovated some thirteen years after the earthquake that rendered it uninhabitable in 1997. Now we all find ourselves back in the UK, at least temporarily, and so we went up to see them in Kevin's old home town of Newcastle.  Sue and I both feel at home with Carole and Kevin, in part perhaps because we have a shared sense of adventure and a willingness to do things rather than just dream about them. Although we met in a new context we quickly settled down into our easy friendship, strolling around Lindisfarne and Newcastle, chatting eating and drinking.  On the Friday night we found a Malaysian restaurant in the City Centre which...

The weekend before last we travelled up to Newcastle to see our old friends Carole and Kevin and found ourselves on an outing to Lindisfarne, the Holy Island.  It's the third time I'd been there and the memories of those earlier visits dogged my footsteps as we strolled around the island on a cold and unsettlingly bright winter day. The first time was in the early eighties with my ex-wife Rosemary for a camping holiday in our brand new little Fiat Panda.  Thinking back to the younger me I could hardly bear the thought that I am the same person.  I was so ignorant of myself and my peculiar preoccupations and Rosemary and I were, well, so young and so naive. The second time was in 1993, en route to the Edinburgh Festival with my friend Rob, his wife Vivian and my girlfriend at the time, Annabel.  I was just getting over divorce and a fucked up rebound relationship and was feeling full of myself, little knowing that within the week one of us would be dead in a...

Part of Sue and my experiment with retirement seems to involve impromptu outings.  Thus having a celebrants meeting near Wakefield Sue decided we should spend the weekend there and promptly booked us into the Holiday Inn Express in the city centre. In the event my meeting was cancelled but on Saturday we drove to Wakefield anyway.  At least I now know why it was never on my bucket list, although it would be worth going back to just for the delightful tapas bar we went to that evening. The highlight of our trip was a visit on Sunday to the National Coal Mining Museum, just outside the city.  It's actually located in an old coal mine and includes a guided tour underground.  This was especially resonant for me as reflections on his short time "down the pit" figured so strongly in dad's anecdotes about his past.  The tour helped make real just how dangerous, noisy and unpleasant mining work is and how a gas explosion is an ever present danger which requires co...