(15 Aug 2016, 8:27 pm)Jamie M wrote Marina's alright but there's nout much else to it. Much like how I view Sunderland - there's Seaburn and the rest is bland like
Beaches tend to be the better places of most settlements, Blyth being another - with the exception of Whitley Bay which has never inspired me, or seemingly anyone else for the past 30 years.
I much prefer North west Durham/South West Tyne&Wear, especially Blackhall Mill and Consett. Nout ever bad around there. Would say the same for Durham, but it's much a one stop show, seen the bridge/square and cathedral and there's not much worth going back to see and be a part of.
Sunderland's a little less grim - probably because it's much bigger and at least does have a few decent shops. We sometimes browse around on a Sunday, since we can get there directly - I'll take one of the boys to get them out of the other's hair.
And there's much, much worse places to have as a local town than Durham. We'll be househunting in a year or two and, even though Husband works on Teesside (though that's never set in stone) we don't want to move out of spitting distance. Helps that it's small enough to dash through and do al your errands before the next bus leaves, half an hour after you arrived, but nice enough to sit in the marketplace with a sarnie and just relax for a bit. And I've lived in the region for getting on for 3 decades and near Durham for 13 years of that and it still keeps surprising me. (Partly because I still keep losing my bearings there, despite having a pretty spot on sense of direction!)