Went today for a few hours. Caught Stornoway on the Main Stage and snapped some photos. Will be back tomorrow. A few of my fave photos from today that have been uploaded so far.

Had a day off of work today.  Took the train to Sunderland to meet Richard. We started off going to Sunderland library home of the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. There were a couple of exhibitions on. Giuseppe Davies: Vie is an interactive installation on until the 3rd of April.  It is a screen that responds to touch with lights and sound. It’s very pretty.  The larger exhibition on is  Think  Tank: A marketplace of ideas ending 13th of Feb so we are lucky we caught it. A bunch of ideas to reflect and improve society…Richard liked the We Not Me poster.  I liked the Institute of Economic Affairs map, simple, pretty and interesting – reminiscent of the Information Aesthetics Blog.

Then we went to Angelo’s Ristorante for excellent Italian food which  Richard got to order with a silly Italian accent – good fun.  For appetizers we had Formaggio di Capra e Rosti di Patate Croccante and Camembert. The main event was Ravioli alla Pizzaiola and Tagliatelle con Vedura e Zafferano.

For desert we went to Stardust which has a cute and crafty gift shop downstairs and a pretty cafe upstairs. Picked up the ring at left from the gift shop. Under £4 and a bit of fun. Upstairs, it’s a shame there weren’t more people there – the couches are the kind you sink into and the coffee and lemon cake were yummy. It seems like a perfect spot for students to camp out in with laptops and to just hang out.

I then attempted to recreate the artwork on the wall of Stardust, a photograph of a sculpture just outside.  It is a 2008 sculpture called Seachange by Laura Johnston.  It is meant to recall the hull of a ship and the shipbuilding heritage of the area as it transforms into something new. [Part of the Sunderland City Centre Public Art Trail]

Unfortunately it was raining so we didn’t want to spend too much time attempting to get the shot. You can see my few attempts on flickr.

I got distracted from the original mission of recreating the photo in the cafe because I loved the trees being reflected in the steel:

Seachange sculpture in Sunderland

To get out of the rain we headed into Primark and picked up some cheap and cheerful shiny, pretty things – a sparkly bracelet for £2 and some pillar candles for £1.75 each. The little charge you get from picking something up for £2 and £10 is really the same and lasts about the same amount of time (and £100 doesn’t really last ten times as long) – it’s a good thing to remember. We then stopped off at Richard’s to pick up the cute and stinky Florence and set off for Hartlepool.

I am a terrible navigator. Hopefully this will change when I learn how to drive. After a number of phone calls to Kev to set us back in the right direction we had a nice relaxed evening with some gewurztraminer from Chile via Morrisons and a quick sweet and sour chickeny bits with rice dish a la Kev.

Mostly it’s just the two of us but it was nice to have company too.  It’s easy to forget when you get into you routine.

The video is shot by Kev from our living room window.  I looked out the window and asked him what it was, he had no idea. Turns out the woodcock is a shy, nocturnal bird so it is rare to see one. We used the excellent RSPB bird identifier to figure out what it was.

One of the things I have enjoyed about living in Hartlepool and having a garden is learning the names of birds. Our garden gets visits from starlings and blackbirds, woodpigeons, robins and sparrows. We get loads of seagulls too.  This past year we had a bunch of baby seagulls on the roof. Growing up in Brooklyn and reading a lot I could tell you that robins and sparrows are small birds…I couldn’t pick them out of a birdy line-up.

We have a friend who is really into birds.  When we go out with him and his wife we look to him to help identify birds. He asks us questions like what did it look  like and what did it sound like…we respond (like Mrs. Swan on Mad TV’s “he looka like a man”) it looked like a bird, it sounded like a bird.

We’re getting a bit better.  I bought a great book for kids about identifying birds in your garden. It’s meant for kids to keep a log of the birds they see and includes stickers. : ) And, it seems like I am enjoying part of a trend.  A comedian we love Bill Bailey (from the brilliant Black Books and his own standup) now has a show about Bird Watching.

Other birds from our garden:

Below are 3 great old photos of my grandfather Shalom as a young man.  This is my mom’s dad. I am enthralled with these photos and the fact that as a young man, he went with friends to a photography studio where they posed reading newspapers and magazines.

I don’t know what year these photos were taken. I have no idea if these were considered high end intellectual newspapers and if this was a style at the time. Would be happy to know if anyone can translate anything from the photos.

Also love the casual reading a newspaper on a hillside photo.

I hope to scan all of my old family photos.

my grandfather posed reading newspapers with friends bottom right corner reads E. LIEPINS TUKUMA

my grandfather posed reading magazines with a friend reverse side has the word Argenta

my grandfather posed reading a newspaper

Finally finished uploading pictures to flickr of Dockfest. The full set is available here »

Photos include a reenactment of the Hartlepool Monkey Hanging Legend (Read more: 1, 2, 3).

Some of my favorites are below:

Hartlepool Dockfest - Natural England

Hartlepool Dockfest - Monkey Legend

Kev fave - Hartlepool Dockfest - Break Static - Turbo Jones

Hartlepool Dockfest - Break Static - Turbo Jones
I want to be the woman in the flowered skirt when I grow up.

Hartlepool Dockfest - The Lightning Seeds - Ian Broudie