Days Out

Alton Towers… Again

You are all probably very well aware that I love Alton Towers. It’s one of my favourite places to visit and I often travel every few weeks (season pass… aaah).

Unfortunately on this visit I misjudged the school holidays and Gaz and I ended up in a theme park full of brats! (admittedly, most of them are actually totally fine, but there’s always the odd few who make you want to get stabby).

Yesterday’s particular brat was quite merrily walking down the side of the queue line of Nemesis to join her mates who were about half way down. I stopped them passing me and explained that if they wanted to join their friends then their friends would have to come back to them.

Explaining the concept of queue jumping to someone in their teens should NOT be something anyone in England should have to do. Indeed, had I tried such a trick when I was that age I would have been fetching my head from the other side of the park as I’d have had it knocked off, and we’d have certainly been on our way home 10 minutes later (not a warning, I was brought up to understand right and wrong and punishment DID once include turning round and going home).

We won’t go in July again; next year our last trip will be mid June. I don’t relish 30 to 45 minute queues; although they are more enjoyable with friends. Especially a “Wollercoaster Fwiend” like Gaz.

Alton Towers… Again!

You’d think I was addicted to the place, but Gaz and I traveled there again yesterday for the day.

We managed to ride 17 coasters including 5 rides on Smiler, 4 on Wicker Man, 3 on Nemesis, 2 on Galactica and 1 on each of Th13teen, Oblivion and RITA; plus the obligatory ride on Duel.

We missed out Spinball and Runaway Mine Train on this occasion.

Amazingly we did over 22,000 steps each – contributed to by the fact we didn’t use the monorail this time.

A bloody hefty weekend!

Again a hefty weekend. It all started on Thursday when I did my talk for the Astronomy Club. It was called “Take it to the bridge” and was all about movie and game fictional space craft and if their technology could work.

Friday was a long day of fixed wire electrical testing. A seven board job with poor paperwork so I had to do a major investigation.

The journey home was a two hour slog due to major traffic problems across the county after a fatal accident at junction 34 to 35 on the M1.

The planned Rock the 80’s rehearsal for that night didn’t happen as you can probably guess.

Saturday was Hannah’s auntie’s 70th down in Oxford.

I wore white jeans. Then I remembered why I don’t often wear white jeans! Mucky arse!

After arriving home at after 9pm and going to bed later than planned I had to get up the following morning for the Strangefish rehearsal. 7:30am on a Sunday is quite painful…

Arriving in Bury for 10 we spent most of the day running through the new songs, plus we introduced three additional faces to the band – a couple who will be joining us onstage in July, plus Jake our sound engineer who will be sorting us out!

It was a hot sweaty day. We ate cake. We rehearsed. We went home.

Oxford

The Oxford trip was yesterday; meeting up with Dr Allan Chapman to go and the Radcliffe Observatory and then to the Museum of the History of Science.

After a bouncy journey down we arrived at the university. The Observatory was first on our itinerary.

Then on to Oxford town centre, and firstly a lunch in Wetherspoons. I don’t really like Wetherspoons. The owner was a massive Brexit supporter and I don’t agree with his ideas, but it’s where the masses wanted to go so we followed; leaving a little message to the next occupier of our table.

The experience was spoiled when a group of families, obviously Eastern European came in, surrounded one table and then proceeded to try and envelop surrounding tables even though the pub was very busy and others were sat at them. It’s horrible manners, and it fuels the flames of racism when foreigners behave like this; especially in these Brexit intolerant times – but we should also remember that the English overseas are also massive dicks.

After a visit to the small continental market opposite to try and find Dutch pancakes (I failed) and ending up having a vegan Bakewell (which was very nice) we headed up to the museum.

I have to say though, that my beard was tidier than the ones on the statues outside.

Allan met us just after two o’clock and took us around as a personal guide. The upper gallery was closed briefly so we could enjoy the tour.

When we finally came out of the hottest museum in history, we decided to take Allan for a cheeky pint in the pub across the road to kill the time until our taxi pickup.

Turns out we sat at the table Morse sits at loads in the BBC series.

The taxi met us at 4:30 and we headed off home.

My reward on arriving home… My parcel had arrived with my new trousers – they’re so shiny!

Leather to a wedding?

I was asked a few days ago if, should the right time and place arise, would I wear leather to a wedding?

Well I can tell you, it’s arisen thrice already! Well twice… The third involved latex!

Both events were in 2009, the first I wore leather jeans with a leather jacket…

Adam, a friend, was fascinated…

The second was a wedding up in the Northeast. This time it was rather nice pleated front leather trousers and a waistcoat… No jacket though.

I also had my sunset coloured Mohican at the time. Nobody messes with you when you’re over 6′ and have a Mohican!

The third event was in 2015… This the the latex jeans came out. Andy thought they were… Strange. But then I’m strange, so nothing new there.

So in answer to the question, of course I’d wear leather to a wedding… Or latex.

Perhaps next time I wear leather to a wedding I’ll go for a three piece… Hmm…

Pure Land

It’s been a couple of years since we last visited Pure Land, but this bank holiday we decided it would make a nice change to return. It’s not too far, or along roads which are subject to massive congestion; plus it’s popular – but not Alton Towers popular.

I got a good opportunity to use the Note 8 camera too.

Pure Land Gallery (click to view)