This is the central dome atop the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield. Today marked my first ever visit to Meadowhall, and I wasn’t totally won over: it struck me as a little bit dark and cramped. There were plenty of free parking spaces, suggesting it wasn’t full to capacity; it must be a nightmare with Christmas crowds!

It’s not actually full moon until tomorrow night, but we’re not far off, and the bright moon above Newcastle is creating an eerie atmosphere this evening.

This is “Cook’s Earth”, Andrew Burton’s globe and sextant sculpture outside the South entrance to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, where I had a meeting this morning. I also did a few of my medical school rotations here.

It, of course, commemorates everybody’s favourite 18th century Middlesborian*, the seafaring discoverer of Australia. The globe used to be more clearly globe-like, with a blue sea, but that seems to have washed off. A replica of his most famous ship is down the road in Stockton, as I showed back in January.

James Cook’s violent death is captured in a famous Zoffany painting; so perhaps it’s appropriate that the hospital named after him is leading the country as a regional specialist trauma centre. Although, given the number of areas in which the hospiral’s highly respected, it’s hard to think of a mode of death for Captain Cook that would preclude me from drawing a tenuous link…!

*Marton, where James Cook was born and his eponymous hospital stands, was actually considered a village in Yorkshire in the 18th century, rather than a suburb of Middlesbrough, so I guess whether or not he was Middlesborian is a bit of a philosophical question!

It might not be immediately obvious from the picture, but it was snowing fairly heavily when I took this shot! Luckily, the snow doesn’t seem to be lying, at least so far. It’s quite a change from the sunny weather of last week!

It’s Wendy’s last day on her current ward tomorrow, and she’s bought a lovely bag of flowers for her supervisor. I don’t think I ever did that in hospital medicine… she must be a nicer person than me!

This is Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, formed by a 350 million year old volcano, which was partly worn away by a glacier a couple of million years ago. I don’t remember any of that myself (it was a little before my time), but I have it on good authority.

Arthur’s Seat is also an important religious site for Mormons, where Orson Pratt prayed for two hundred new converts almost two hundred years ago. These were duly delivered over the course of ten months. I wonder if, in retrospect, he wished he’d been a little more ambitious and prayed for, say, eradication of all human suffering. Maybe that would’ve been greedy.

St Leonard’s Hall at the University of Edinburgh’s Pollock Halls. I don’t really know anything about it, but it’s a building that looks like it has a history!

It’s not the most original shot, but the Ross Fountain seemed appropriate given that it’s only a couple of days since I was in England’s capital: it came from London to Edinburgh following the 1862 World’s Fair in South Kensington. Unlike me, it took a decade to make the journey, and is originally French.

Interestingly, Edinburgh Museums claim it was bought at the Great Exhibition of 1862: a claim that’s repeated on many other websites. As a bit of a world’s fair buff, I think they’ve confused the famous Crystal Palace Great Exhibition of 1851 with the Great Exposition of 1862 – the latter was funded by the profits of the former – but then I’m no historian, and might be confused myself.

I don’t really have anything interesting to say about Edinburgh Castle, other than pointing out that the £15 admission price seems excessive to me: you can visit Alnwick Castle for a whole year for less if you really want to go to a castle…! Though, I guess, that advice isn’t a huge amount of good if you’re in Edinburgh!

Today’s photo shows the old bus station on Worswick Street in Newcastle. It’s been disused for almost 15 years, and is now something of an unofficial, and presumably rather inefficient, car park.

This whole area of the city centre has been ear-marked for regeneration for a long time, but nothing seems to have happened as yet…

I was given this at work today, along with a biodegradable drinks bottle and a desktop recycling tray, in celebration of today’s NHS Sustainability Day… the day after taking a domestic flight that could’ve been travelled by train. Clearly, I’m a bad eco-citizen, and must improve!