My God , my family and my travels: Durham , Gateshead and Newcastle Upon Tyne

It was sad leaving Dad this morning.the 10th of May 2011...seeing him standing at his home and waving goodbye to us....but we had too as we had to go on with our trip to Europe. We said our goodbyes...tears in our eyes...saying bye to the beautiful Finley home....and Dad..what can I say...he has been my 'Dad' eversince I met him in 1995 with John and Chachi....as I lost mine in 1980. It was truly a heavy feeling in my heart and as a parting gift he gave me a beautiful English teapot which was about 50 years old as he really wanted me to have it. Thank you Dad for everything you are truly a big part of my life and will treasure the gift you have given me.

We set off at about 8.00am in our faithful Proton Gen 2...it felt as though we had drove it to England all the way from Malaysia! We told ourselves that we had to make a short visit to Durham and Newcastle. So we bid Stockton on Tees farewell and were on our way. After about 45 minutes we arrived at Durham..the beautiful city that houses the Durham Cathedral , Castle and University in the same grounds. We stopped at the Cathedral...and the big bells were ringing...and after a few photos we drove on to see the University but did not go into the city centre as it was peak hours and the traffic was building up.

Further on we went through the city of Newcastle upon Tyne...a big city with beautiful buildings ....nice bridges....and a number of universities in the city centre...of which one of them..the University of Newcastle was where my nephew Kavin studied a few years ago. Again it was peak hours and we did not park anywhere and drove on and caught a glimpse of Gateshead...where Chachi....David's sister did her nursing and met her husband John.

Then we continued our journey back to Wokingham...to the Suresh residence where a hot dinner prepared by Marita was waiting for us. It was good to be back there and we had good hearty chats and I was off upstairs to print all our boarding passes for our Ryanair flights in Europe and packing our suitcases for our trip.

A very memorable trip to the North of England...and the image of Dad waving goodbye to us kept in my heart.