Stride out to the Lighthouse

North Tyneside Council holds a health walk every year, and every year I think, oh I wish we'd done that.  This year I made no such mistake and ensured that everybody was available to tackle the 10k walk.  Despite the previous week being day after day of glorious sunshine, the day dawned grey and windy.  We set off nonetheless, all in high spirits to meet up with some friends and get our numbers.  The walk started at The Parks in North Shields and meandered down to our magnificent coastline,  through the Fish Quay.  We met our friends Karen and Jason Nash and their 2 kids, stuck Tom in a pushchair (to eradicate whinging- this is the child who starts to whine "I'm tired" when he gets a third of the way down our street!) listened to the mayor say some stuff (I don't know what, I wasn't listening!) and then off we went.


It was cold, there is no denying that.  The 2 oldest kids suffered injuries (not really) from not looking where they were going and so falling over, I had a couple of hypos, and the kids did ask once or twice (or maybe more!) "how much further?".  But, amazingly, we all made it, including the eight year old, 2 six year olds and a three year old, and the closer we got to St Marys Lighthouse, the more energy the kids seemed to have (perhaps it was the lure of those goody bags!).


I really enjoyed it, it felt wonderful to get a decent amount of exercise, and truth be told, could have walked much further!  We were all starving after all that walking and brisk sea air, so when we got home we treated ourselves to a slap up lunch of fish and chips - yum and richly deserved!!!