What’s your Hogwarts House?

I was hoping my next blog post would be celebrating England winning the World Cup in rugby, but after South Africa beat us 32-12 that isn’t going to happen. Still, it was fun to head to the pub at 9am to watch it with a bunch of other England supporters.

And one South African fan that made sure he could be seen from anywhere in the pub…

I was working that day at 2.30pm, so I only had a coffee. Honestly. The weather matched our mood as it poured down, a good day to work. This was the 2nd November, a few days ago so apologies for the late post. And thank you to everyone that commented on my last post regarding the logo. I am always thinking of ways I could add to or improve my blog, and was considering something visual that could be associated with it. I am not very artistic but it is fun to try new things.

Another reason for my absence (as you can maybe see above) is that I have bought a new camera. It is the GoPro 7 Hero Silver, a cheaper version of the still pretty new GoPro Hero 7 series, the Black edition being the best of the bunch. I haven’t used a GoPro before so couldn’t justify the £280 ($360 US) pricetag, Silver has less features but over £100 cheaper. So far I am really enjoying using it, creating time lapses and testing out what it can do.

So far I have done the most trying out on the 4th, as I am now on a weeks holiday and decided to see my mum and sister back up north. This meant taking a train from Kings Cross to Bishop Auckland, from the south east to the north east of England.

For anyone on Instagram I have uploaded my journey to the story, full of quick clips on route. As it has been over 24 hours the story has disappeared, but what I like is that you can permanently save the story to the user home screen underneath the bio section.

Annoyingly when I try to upload video clips onto my blog it takes forever to load and eventually displays an error message. The national anthem video above worked, but since then I have had problems and even that took forever. For that reason I will probably add photos on here and leave the clips for my Instagram. Smaller clips may be possible, I will have to see. But as this is more of a blog than a vlog, I am happy to stick to photos to accompany the writing.

First stop, Kings Cross.

Kings Cross is in easy reach of my current base. From London Bridge Station it is only a couple of stops north on the Northern Line, and once there just a couple of escalators up to ground level and to Kings Cross itself.

The first thing that you notice upon entering the station is the roof. It was part of a £500 million restoration in 2012, and is visually very impressive.

A giant poppy can be seen at the time of posting, representing the poppy worn in respect to those that sacrificed their lives in the First World War. Remembrance Day is on the 11th November, and a two minute silence is held at 11am on this date every year.

Tens of millions of people enter and exit the station every year, as well as St Pancras station across the road from it. Eurostar operates from St Pacras, taking travellers to Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Kings Cross is the station that links London to the rest of the country.

Another thing that Kings Cross is known for is Platform 9 3/4, introduced to this world through the Harry Potter books. A cool feature is permanently located close to platforms 9 and 10 in Kings Cross, with a big line of excited tourists ready to make the magical journey through the wall.

What is your Hogwarts House? I would like to know as I have no idea what mine would be, maybe you can tell through my blog posts? I am sure I fit into one of them! Also, I have a timelapse from this very spot on my Instagram page linked below.

The journey time from London to Darlington is roughly 2 hours and 46 minutes. Paris is in fact a quicker and closer destination, the average journey time being 2 hours 16 minutes.

From Darlington, I would board a smaller train through County Durham, taking around half an hour.

I managed to get first class for a good price from London to Darlington, £37 which includes a little bit more space, breakfast, lunch or dinner (depending on the time of journey) and a couple glasses of wine to go along with it. I boarded just before noon meaning I got to enjoy lunch, which made having a glass of wine just a little bit more acceptable. That and the two Geordie girls on the food cart that convinced me to go for it.

I happily obliged.

Being back in Bishop was nice. Much, much quieter than London but I am happy with that. I took to the almost desolate streets to take a few photographs on my GoPro. Some of these streets may look familiar to you from this post when I first got back from Australia. This time around the weather wasn’t as good, but at least it didn’t rain.

One thing I love about British weather is the ever changing cloud patterns. It is possible to get a new shot every few minutes with the sun constantly being blocked and bursting through the clouds again, brightness levels and cloud colours constantly changing. I love a good gaze out of the window back home and over the rolling hills, watching the sheets of rain make their way through the fields and hitting the window pane, wave after wave.

Below, an abandoned path and stairway that I never knew existed. This is taken on a viaduct that crosses the River Wear, I didn’t jump over the fencing but I’m still intrigued to know whether it still takes you somewhere.

I enjoyed this journey north. The train journey was great, the sun came out towards the end and I loved getting out and taking a few snaps. And from here, a couple of days with my mum before another train journey north again to Edinburgh. We are spending time with my sister to take in some sights and some quality family time.

Thank you for reading, Edinburgh blog coming soon!

 

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