For New Years Eve, Hannah and I went to South Shields to stay with Naomi and Paul.  The drive up on 30 Jan after work from London was quiet and it was good to see the extended family.

We went shopping in Newcastle and found some interesting things for sale.

In the evening seven of us went out to the bars around South Shields.

Normally it is fun going out in South Shields, however this time it started snowing hard around midnight, and there were suddenly no taxis. I waited in the taxi stand line for an hour, and only one taxi turned up in that time, and there were at least 50 people waiting.  I got bored of waiting and by that time was almost freezing to death and so decided to jog back to Naomi’s place with only a thin jacket through very heavy snow.  Here’s a photo I talk on the way back – you can kind of see how hard it was snowing.

The rest of the group huddled in a nearby kebab shop and waited until it closed, when they paid the kebab shop owner to drive them home!

The snow wasn’t all bad though, at least the next day Naomi and I made a snowman! You can see here the massive effort we put into it:

It’s been so cold this winter in England.  I can’t wait until I’m back in New Zealand on Saturday and back to the beach and the warmth.