Picnic in the Park

I think this has been the nicest July we have had in many many years, it certainly tops this time last year when every day we were getting soaked to the skin. I have been hearing many horror stories about the freak storm that hit Newcastle on a particularly wet Thursday last July when lightening struck the Tyne Bridge and everyone had to wade home from work through floods.  Lounging about in this hot sun it's very hard to imagine what that must have been like.

When Simon and I started dating and we were planning my first trip to Newcastle he was very excited about taking me for a picnic, unfortunately when the weekend came the weather wasn't delivering and then the Summer came and went and we never really got round to revisiting the idea.  So with the promise of a beautiful hot Saturday, this weekend we finally dusted down the picnic hamper.

There was only one place to head for our food .. Fenwicks.  The food hall in Fenwicks is one of my favourite places in Newcastle, I could quite happily spend hours wandering around looking at all of the delicious things it has to offer.  In fact, it's not often that we go for a trip to Toon without fitting in time for a little window food shop, therefore I've had my eye on the "Country Kitchen" counter for a very long time.  It's a wonderland of locally produced pies, scotch eggs, quiches, cheese, bread and cakes. 

Our chosen selection of goodies were: Quiche Lorraine, Ploughmans Scotch Egg, some lovely fresh bread which we had with Kildare Cheese and Wensleydale with Cranberry, strawberries and cream and our absolute favourite cakes from the North East, Lottie McPhees (little word of warning .. taking cupcakes on a 30 minute walk in the hot sun does not end well!). 

We spent the afternoon picnicking in Saltwell Park in Gateshead, which is such an idyllic place to spend the afternoon.  We split our time between lounging about in the sun, wandering round the lake, people watching or visiting the bunnies and birds.  Perfection!

 

As we headed home in the late afternoon Simon took me on a sneaky little detour to somewhere I've been wanting to go for ages.  The Suzuki dealership.  We've been planning on getting a Suzuki Swift for a while now and it's definitely something we need to be able to explore the area better.  Newcastle is such an ideal place to live as we're driving distance to North Yorkshire, the Lakes, Northumberland and even Scotland .. neither of us have owned a car for a while and we're a little giddy at the thought.  As soon as we get back from our holidays in September we are booking ourselves a test drive and I really can't wait!