Barbara drove us to Newcastle so we could look around the Great North Museum. This was not as 'great' as Miriam expected with the Roman antiquities merged from another venue and not particularly well displayed. There were some interesting altar stones - it seems that almost every Roman had their own altar to keep their particular god happy. Some were sizable (a meter or so high) while others were almost portable! There are also many engraved stones either celebrating the life of someone or just marking the completion of a section of the wall. As each section of wall was finished by a Century of soldiers (which for some reason is 80 men, you'll need to Google it find out why) they would insert a plaque crediting them for that section. On the remains of the actual wall, only some foundation and facing stones remain so this was interesting to see.
Of the other exhibits, of particular interest were the two funerary reliefs below. These are from Palmyra and date from the 2nd century AD. They are in almost perfect condition and fantastic sculptures. A pity that the IS lunatics are currently destroying everything else in this ancient city.
It was raining when we left the Museum and we decided to skip the Cafe there and head back towards Hexham and stopped for lunch at a rural eatery called Vallum. Our scones at the Cafe in the Museum for morning tea were almost as bad as the stale ones at Malton. These places seem to have no qualms about selling stuff that we would have thrown out! Or perhaps they like them like this?
Out next stop was Hexham were Barbara collected her two grandsons (Ben and Oscar) from their primary school. We pottered around at Michael's house and they showed us how to play 'Go Fish'. They are great kids and playing cards helped us all to 'bond'. Miriam and I then walked them home (a few hundred metres away) where we had dinner with Kim (Barbara's daughter) and husband Frank. Michael joined us after his first day at work and we had a great curry, a few wines and got to know this side of Barbara's family.
The two boys are getting into Minecraft so I got them to show me the ropes. I'm not sure I see the attraction but it is obviously a very popular program. I also got Ben going on my phone playing '2048'. This may not have been such a good idea as he was addicted instantly and had to be dragged away to do his piano practice!