ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

It’s been a busy week for the kiddywinks this week. BTP’s nursery had a graduation ceremony for all of the kids who would be starting school in September (I think they have it early so that it’s less likely to clash with family holidays etc).

First, the kids performed Peter Pan, where BTP was a brave little indian brave. There were some teensy differences to what I remember — I don’t recall Peter Pan and Captain Hook shaking hands and agreeing to be friends at the end of the story — but as it’s difficult enough to control one four-year old, I think the nursery did really well in getting the kids to do this.

Anyway, after Peter Pan they all had to get their gowns and mortar boards on so that they could go out and receive their certificates from Captain Hook.

Then, this weekend’s trip was to the Blue Reef Aquarium at Tynemouth.

It’s not cheap. In fact, it’s bloody expensive and I still feel somewhat ripped off: it’s £7.50 for adults and £5.50 for anyone three and over, for what amounts to an hour and a half wandering around looking at some fish. For that price, I’d expect to be able to choose one to take one home.

Although I don’t think I would choose the Deep Sea Anglerfish. It’s an ugly looking bugger, with basically a big pile of teeth and strange spiky bits. This wasn’t actually alive — it was suspended in a glass case with no water in it — so I think it was safe to presume that it was a preserved one.

The light of the ‘lure’ is in fact an artefact of the camera reflecting off the glass, but I think it looks quite effective as a lure to be honest…

However, most of the animals we saw were in fact, alive.

There is this bit in the Blue Reef Aquarium where you walk through a tunnel with a glass roof, above which is a large tank with lots of fishies of varying sorts swimming around in it. Unfortunately, because I was being ahem ‘assisted’ by two small children, I was unable to spend the time reading the bits on the walls to discover what sort of fish they actually were, and so as far as I can tell, managed to take some photos of ‘a big bluey-green fish’ and ‘a kind of a leopard-spotted dogfish or shark or something’.

We had timed our visit reasonably successfully — in time to see two ’shows’, one of which we’d seen before, where you basically sit in a room and they lift small animals out of a rockpool (starfish, crab, sea anemone) to allow the kiddies (and grown ups, but mostly kiddies) to feel them to see what they are like.

The other show was more entertaining but also considerably more damp, because we were outside to watch the seals being fed, and so inevitably it was raining somewhat. Despite taking about a dozen photographs when the seals were jumping out of the water and playing with their trainers, every shot came out as either ‘before’ (trainer holding hand out above water, no sign of seal) or ‘after’ (trainer holding hand out above water, big splash where seal has re-entered water but still no visible seal), so I’m glad that I actually took the time to watch it, instead of just taking photographs!

There were also clownfish (”Nemo!”), wolf fish, scorpion fish, an octopus, sea horses, rays and the like on display, as well as a big section with an otter holt. Unfortunately, we’d mis-timed this one, as the otters had been fed about an hour before and were somewhat lethargic. And very smelly.

So after watching all these fishies, what was there to do but to go and eat some?

We couldn’t spot a restaurant near the Blue Reef Aquarium, so got back in the car and drove along, looking for somewhere where we could get some seaside fish and chips. Once we ended up having driven from Tynemouth into North Shields, I knew we’d find something — North Shields is famous for its Fish Quay, and sure enough we found this and were faced by about five fish and chip shops.

We chose Kristian’s restaurant (the takeaway is right next to the restaurant), because we’d been there before when BTP was only about six months old, and it had provided lovely fish and chips then. It wasn’t to let us down today either. The kids meals were just over three quid, but I wouldn’t have said that they were child’s portions — the fish were normal sized — it’s just that the fish you got on the adult portions were huge. It was all lovely and well cooked, and I remember thinking that it had been worth the extra little drive to make it back here.

But we weren’t going home just yet, either.

The plan was now to visit Gateshead Quays, because as we had been going over the Tyne Bridge, I had seen a strange spiky structure which the GLW had informed me was a temporary bamboo bridge which had been erected over the river Tyne for just a few days, so we thought it might be nice to see that — and maybe also take the kids to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

First, however, we would take the kids over the Gateshead Millenium Bridge, which they had been clamouring to go on. This is a pedestrian/cycle bridge over the river Tyne which I think is amazingly elegant, and unlike the Millenium Bridge in London, did not have to be closed because pedestrians walking across it caused it to wobble. The Gateshead Millenium Bridge is nicer looking, and it’s safe to walk across.

Granted, not everyone likes it. The art critic Brian Sewell described it as looking like a giant egg-slicer, and while I see the resemblance, I don’t think that means it looks bad. Having said that, I don’t tend to share the same likes and dislikes in the art field as Brian, so perhaps it’s not surprising I disagree…

Of course, by this time it was raining heavily (have you noticed a theme to these trips out, yet?) and we were all getting absolutely soaked, so instead just standing around on the bridge, it was almost time to pay a quick trip to the Baltic…

Almost. I still wanted to get a picture of that temporary Bamboo Bridge across the Tyne. Unfortunately because of the incessant rain, it’s quite difficult to pick out on the photograph itself, you can see the strange spiky bamboo tower on the Gateshead bank of the Tyne easily enough … and if you look closely you might just see the bamboo “rope bridge” stretching out over the water.

(In the background we have the Tuxedo Princess — the big boat that was formerly a nightclub until it closed last year; the Tyne Bridge — the big green one at the top; the recently re-opened High Level Bridge — the brown one; the Metro bridge — the blue one, used for local metro train services; and of course the red-and-white Swing Bridge).

And then it was time to visit the Baltic, although I had to stop and take one more photograph just to clearly demonstrate exactly how much it was raining, because I know you all think I’m exaggerating about this. Look. Go and look at the bigger photo of the Baltic entrance on Flickr. Look at that rain. See?

Anyway, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art….

Yes, it’s all modern art. Yes, there is frequently a lot of pretentious tosh:

the works raise questions of performance and authorship, and in particular the issues that arise when the artist is no longer the central agent in his or her own work, but operates through a range of individuals, communities and surrogatesBaltic: ‘Double Agent’

…okay, to some people that will sound fascinating and interesting, and indeed the art itself may be (although I wasn’t impressed with it, to be honest) but the reverence in which it is described I find quite ludicrous.

…but there are also some interesting things worth looking at, such as the strange houses, with strange doll paintings in them. Unfortunately, I am unable to show you what any of these things actually looked like as you are told that you can’t take photos of the artwork (shame, really).

However, I did take a photo of the stairs, which look really quite impressive when you’re looking down from above. They seem to go down an awful long way, and looking down the stairwell I always find creates quite an evocative image of the distance just stretching away. I’ll not go on any more, as I feel there’s a risk that I’ll stray into the ‘pretentious twaddle’ territory…

And then, some seven and a half hours after we’d set out, it was time to go home. Sea life, sea food, bridges and a bit of cultcha. Not a bad day out.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 12:54 am and is filed under Life, Local Interest, The Pickards. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.