Without wishing to sound alarmist, all of us need to make a 3 year business plan (which includes personal aspiration) as the world is changing rapidly. Not only are the major rivers full-to-bursting, those little brooks running through the hamlets are in days like these, like torrents. Added to this the eastern seabord is tilting ever more down into the sea. ItâÂÂs time to do something. Plan. Make it happen.
On this eastern side sits Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Saturday was coronation day: a new old king of Tyneside returning from a needless abdication.
I drive from west to east and back again. Past the castle/cathedral/throne/play-house in the middle: St.James Park. At first light I see Newcastle as one: Blaydon across the River and clear on up the Scotswood Road, looping up through Gosforth, Heaton, Jesmond and Sandyford, through Byker where cars are hardly allowed, to Walker and Wallsend, pausing at Swan and Hunter, with its brightly coloured cranes in semi-dismantlement.
No Keegan shirts hung over their vast frames. Just yet. Three lads cycle past, weaving stripes of black and white, fishing rods to the fore. Everyone on this day is bearing flowers and ringing Mum - Valentine's day come early. Rosettes on every chest: on all the staff in the joke shop, all the staff in the bakery.
Ordinary people in the streets knowing exactly why they donâÂÂt know why they are smiling (teeth gone to the tooth-fairy).
A magical figure is in town.
