Off centre

I zipped around Newcastle town centre, having left it very late to complete Christmas shopping.

My frame of reference has changed and it's true that 15 years ago I was mainly focused on obtaining McFlurries at McDonalds (pictured), but it really seems the town has stagnated. Its mainstays now are pound shops and coffee chains, and there was a general windswept air of greyness and bleakness. There weren't even hordes of panicked men going into H Samuel the jeweller, taking advantage of the last shopping hour before Christmas.

I picked up a pannetone to take to Tom and Nicola's later in the day. Thinking this was an appropriate gift confirmed that I have changed a lot from the naive 20-year old youth who could be found drinking Smirnoff Ices at Blues bar, one of our favourite haunts (now likely a Caffè Nero).

I met my sister's new boyfriend Matt at one of the few swinging spots in town, where they were starting a mini-steamer. He seems great.

Having sold their house, Tom and Nicola, their three boys and four cats are living in a mobile home (think Abersoch or Eurocamp) on Nic's parents' farm, while they renovate and extend an old barn on the property. Somehow it works although space is at a premium. I didn't arrive at bedtime so as not to disrupt proceedings, but arrived just after to relocate the boys' Christmas piles from the main farmhouse, and cadge a mince pie from Nic's mum Gill, our old geography teacher.