Last Thursday afternoon I had the luxury of an early finish at Nissan so I decided to take advantage of the nice weather as I had a couple of hours to kill.
Lovely blue sky with broken clouds everywhere - just right for those nice postcard shots I like to grab now and again.I started off in Sunderland town centre, on the top level of St Mary's multi-storey car park, overlooking Wearmouth Bridge and the River Wear. The wind was up and the corrugated roofing was rattling like neebody's business. I was sure it was about to fly off any minute, ending up god knows where. As long as it didn't tw*t me then I wasn't really bothered ...(that's twit, by the way). I got the shots I wanted before heading off to the ticket machine to pay the £1.10 charge. Quite steep for only five minutes stay!
I was quickly off on my travels over the Queen Alexander Bridge and a swift shuffle through the one-way system brought me out along Keir Hardie Way, near Southwick.
I parked on a double yellow and nipped over the fence to grab a couple of quick shots of the Stadium Of Light and the banks of the wear. No time to hang about though. I was in and out like a ferret down a rabbit hole!From there I drove along Wessington Way towards Hylton Castle. On arrival I dropped anchor in the adjacent car park and grabbed my gear from the car boot. Once inside the castle grounds I heard a few shouts and noticed a gang of local chav's playing footy on the grass - right in front of the bloody castle! I considered adopting my 'Park Keeper' routine and telling them to 'Get the f*ck of MY grass', but decided against it when I realised that five against one would probably see me coming off worse in the event of a stand off. I decided to suck the preverbial lemon and simply grab what photo's I could. Here's an angled effort, with the local riff-raff cut out of the shot...
Well, it was half an hour to go before my Indian scran was ready to collect so I headed up the A19 and then along towards Tandoori Garden in Shiney Row. Hang on a minute - I'm fifteen minutes early so I'll pop into Herrington Country Park for a last bash with the camera. A pair of Mute Swans were swanning about gracefully on a small pond, as they do, so I took up position with Penshaw Monument as a nice backdrop. Bob's yer uncle. Fifteen minuted was over in a flash. Time to nash.
Fifteen minutes later I was back to base and gorging me'sel on the finest chicken Vindaloo money can buy. Aye, ad already done me prep work and the bog roll had been chilling in the fridge for a good twelve hours! With me belly filled it was time to check my latest photographs. Hey, quite pleased with the results, considering it a was an all round rush job.Thanks for reading my latest exploits folks.
Til the next time, ta ta!
Ash
