Having a Wall of a Time

A couple of weeks ago we were checking out Greek sites of 2,000-3,000 year-old antiquity, today something closer to home, but only a little younger.

The weather gods were kind. A nice little circular walk from Steel Rigg car park, heading out on the less-travelled route on the northern side of Hadrian's Wall (certainly was less-travelled today, crossing paths with not a single other soul on the outward journey, but dozens on the return alongside the wall itself). This little section happened to contain the rather famous Sycamore Gap (which is now also known, apparently, as Robin Hood's tree, after Kevin Costner's American-accented hero travelled from Dover to Nottingham via the Wall - seems all of those years on the Crusades had dulled his English geographical knowledge). There seemed to be queues to get your photo taken in front of it. Just really interesting to be somewhere again with so much history attached to it.

That feeling only intensified with a trip to Vindolanda, which had a lovely little museum, showing off some truly astonishingly well-preserved remains (the shoes, seriously, the shoes!), and the renowned Vindolanda tablets, with letters to people about socks and beer and nervous breakdowns.

Just time to hotfoot back to the hotel, shower, change, then a great dinner at Hei Hei, before the theatre (which looks utterly grand on the outside, but shrinks on the inside (sort of like a reverse Tardis) but retains it's beauty). The performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona was excellent, though I always preferred Shakespeare's comedies, and I'm a stalwart of the view that if you take people to see it performed well then no-one could accuse Shakespeare of being boring, even less so when the RSC bring in up-to-date ideas like a clubbing scene with dancing, and an X-Factor-esque performance of one of the sonnets.

Mind you, the entire performance was held together by a dog...

Walking back to the hotel you get to see Saturday night in Newcastle in all its.... 'glory'... The dolly birds teetering about on vertiginous heels while trying to show as much flesh as possible, with groups of lads (and groups of older guys) lurching about leeringly. Maybe I've lived in Edinburgh too long...