Having commuted between Newcastle and London for the best part of 12 years Kings Cross station holds many, many bad memories for me. It’s probably best known for the epic delays, its crumbling, damp façade and the ever-present hoards of tramps/crackheads.

However, the adjacent St Pancreas station has been completely redeveloped and is now the main hub for the euro tunnel. They are also working on the main station but the whole thing is much more joined up and easier to use.

I have to say that’s it’s easily the best station I’ve ever been in and is actually much better than most of the major airports I’ve been too. They’ve done an amazing job restoring the Victorian station and adding loads of modern features. They just need to sort out the Olympics now and if they do a similar job they might just pull it off (I’m still sceptical though!)

I got the train all the way from Newcastle to France and was there in under 5 hours – It felt much quicker though and was much more comfortable than flying.

round lille

we spent loads of time seeing the sights - as you can see amber was really impressed.

painted house

Check this picture and see if you can tell which is the real house.

It's actually one big white house with all the others painted on. Not sure why they did that. It was the end of a long terrace in Lille.

eurostar

Settling into our seats on the Eurostar we glide under the channel and enter france in time for breakfast.

Pinar and amber enjoy their on-board continental breakfast, while I enjoy a liquid one.

The Breakfast of champions!

TV Times

Our Angel campaign at work should be over soon and we had one last flourish with 11m viewers on BBC one.

Here we are live to air at 6pm. Surprisingly low budget.

The 300

Or more like the 4,000. A record crowd at non-league Blyth Spartans as they march into the 3rd round proper of the FA Cup. Up next Big Fat Sam's Blackburn from the Premier League. Santa Cruize is coming to Blyth....He'll get a shock! Hopefully another win and another hilaruous post match pitch invasion.

Still they can't do any worse than the jokers up the road. Here's a picture of Given just before the 3rd goal went in during the 5-1 Christmas drubbing. Wish I'd hit the sales instead.

The pit

One of Amber's favorite presents from Christmas. Leads to utter chaos and hours of tidying up.

drive time

Let it snow

Amber's first real taste of snow but not to convinced. The drive up to Scotland was a bit hairy and the following day we had even thicker snow. AC wasn't too bothered even after I pelted her with snowballs.