From the Coal Era to the Information Age

The coal era and the information age were like bookends at our visit to the Woodhorn Museum today.

Northeast England, like a lot of industrial areas--I'm thinking of North Carolina's textile mills--suffered when its primary industry, in this case coal, went away. Newcastle has spent the last 15 to 20 years trying to reinvent itself as a high-tech and media city. Video games have played a pretty significant part in reviving the area's economy. There's an exhibit on now at the Woodhorn Museum called Videogame Nation--and today we went to go see it.

Billed as "a fun-filled exhibition charting the meteoric rise of videogaming--from the geek-tastic realm of the bedroom programmer to the multi-billion pound industry it is today," the Videogame Nation exhibit was fascinating.

It was strange and nostalgic--even for me, not a big gamer--to see old video game console systems like the Atari on display as artifacts in a museum. The exhibit was a retrospective of the last 35 years of game development, told mostly from the perspective of Britain's contributions to the industry.

After the video game exhibit, we toured the rest of the museum, housed in a collection of old brick buildings that used to be the Woodburn Colliery. The coal mine opened in 1894 and was in operation until the mid 1980s. We all learned a lot about coal mining, the role that unions played in the mining industry here in the UK, and about the hard life that miners and their families lived.

After we saw it all, we had lunch in the cafe.

Then a short kiddie train ride along the old narrow gauge railway through the scenic Queen Elizabeth II Country Park.

Then a sleepy 20-minute drive home.

Then the boys all napped and I went for a run. I've entered a 10K that I'll be running in a couple of weeks; I need to keep training so that I don't end up barfing in the bushes on race day! Actually, today I ran the full 6.2 miles and felt great. I didn't run the actual course, just the correct distance. What a gorgeous day! I ran along the seafront, 3.1 miles down to Tynemouth and 3.1 miles back. Right by the Tynemouth Priory and Castle.

People were out in serious numbers today. It was 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit) and you would have thought it was the middle of summer! Shorts and flip-flops. Surfers in the water (in wet suits of course). Joggers. Bikers. People playing rugby on the beaches. Dog walkers. Kids eating ice cream. Even the main drag had bumper to bumper traffic, like Myrtle Beach in June.

Makes me wonder what summer will be like when it rolls around. I am excited to live in a beachside community. A first for me. I can't wait!