Wednesday 23 February 2005. It was a snowy but bright day heading over to Newcastle for a meeting of the Jisc Advisory Services. Besides Jisc infoNet that I worked for, there were Jisc Legal, Jisc TechDis, Jisc Netskills and a few staff from Jisc's central offices too.
As far as I remember, this was a meeting over two days, starting after lunch on the 23rd and ending after lunch on the 24th. It was 140 miles each way journey for me. Some had travelled from London and Bristol. On the way to Newcastle the A66 was looking a bit wintry and I was glad to get over the Pennines safely and onto the A1M. I stopped to take a quick photo of the Angel of the North in snow.
Thursday 24 February 2005. Overnight the snow caught up to Newcastle. This was the view from my bedroom that morning, looking towards Newcastle railway station with a GNER train pulling out on its journey south to York and beyond. The train is on a raised viaduct that now divides the castle keep from its barbican, the Black Gate.
There has been a fortress here since Roman times, guarding the crossing of the River Tyne at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The son of William the Conqueror, Robert Curthose built a motte and bailey castle here in 1080, being a mound of earth with a wooden pallisade and the current Keep, seen today was built by King Henry II from 1172 to 1177 with the Black Gate being added during Henry III's reign between 1247-1250.
Heading homeward again later that afternoon, the snow was falling heavily on the A66.
The road was still open but there wasn't much traffic attempting it and I knew I had a few exposed roads to come even once I left the A66.
On the West Yorkshire moors the wind was blowing hard, turning the snow into a whirling blizzard and starting to cover the road. At times I had no idea where the edges of the road were but luckily there was always a bit of clear tarmac so that I could see enough to avoid any risk of driving off on one side or the other.
By the time I was approaching Kirby Stephen, the hills were white but the road was reassuringly visible again!
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