Another busy weekend

This time we were off to Blackpool for a couple of days. It was originally supposed to be last month - in place of a birthday party for Alex - but Amanda was sent to hospital with suspected DVT, so we postponed till this weekend.

We arrived at the hotel (up by North Pier) at 11:00, and after a quick check of the room, and unpacking the overnight bag, we set off for a walk. The weather had been forecasting a rather cold day with lots of showers, but it was lovely - so nice that I managed to get sunburn on my head!!

We had an 'Edwardian' photograph taken on central pier, spent an afternoon on the Pleasure Beach, and finished of with the Hot Ice show, a tram ride back to the hotel for 22:00, and a couple of drinks in the bar. Alex was fantastic, it was the first time he had been old/tall enough to go on any of the 'decent' rides, and we started him with one of the best - The Grand National, followed up with the Revolution, the Avalanche, the Big Dipper and few other assorted rides. He absolutely loved it, and now cant wait to go back next year when he should be tall enough to take on the remaining rides - The Big One, Infusion, The Mad Mouse and the Ice Blast (he is about 2 cm too short for those four at the moment)

This morning, the weather was most definitely looking wetter, so after an early breakfast we all went to 'The Sandcastle' where Alex again had his first experience with a decent water slide, and again loved it. The journey back took in a shopping trip/lunch at the Trafford Centre, and a steady run back down the M6 to arrive back home at 19:45.

Personally, I am glad to have a couple of days off from work to recover!!

Guess what I found this weekend

The background *may* have been digitally amended to remove a 'blue' colour cast !!

Amazing the things you find at Gardeners World Live!

Alex having fun

One of the benefits of the new combined "Gardeners World Live" along with the good housekeeping show etc. was the wider variety of exhibitors on show. Even Alex found thing to entertain him.

I had a go too, but no one got a camera out in time to embarrass me ;-)

New Blogging Tool

Windows Live Writer: Works fine with Vista, seem to be easy enough to set up, and will upload images to my FTP folder when I attach them to a blog...  Have a look at it, it's free

Ouch - Expensive week...

As if Bike Insurance, Holiday Balance & TV Licence bills all arriving withing two days wasn't bad enough, we had a plumbing emergency - a leaking Soil pipe that was causing the veranda to stink.

The good thing about having a plumber living next door, is at least you can get a rapid response. Steve did a great job today, but another £70 bill is definitely one I could have done without!

Just Got Back...

From Dudley Castle, where Amanda and I have been to spend an evening with the very wonderful, and *very* beautiful "Miss Katherine Jenkins".

As usual, she sang superbly, looked gorgeous and gave the audience a fantastic show - with a Dudley Zoo reference inserted into the Penguin joke.

The weather was really good, sunny, but not too hot, and the setting and sound was good. The only minor point to criticize was the traffic getting into the car park - the lights allowing traffic to turn right into the car park entrance seemed to be faulty, and we were effectively going over on Red!! Getting out was much easier, as several police officers were on traffic duty at the junction, and made sure the traffic left the site very quickly.

Golfing with Neil (Again)

Neil managed to get finished early today, and I am off (Working a 12 hour night shift tonight) and we returned to Warley Woods for a rematch.

All in all we both felt that we played much better than a few weeks ago, even if we did still have an occasional poor (well, OK very poor) hole.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	HOLE
4	3	4	3	3	4	4	4	4	Par33
7	5	4	4	6	8	6	5	6	51

18 over... So, close to my target round of 50!! And even better was with Neil also scoring 51, it was a draw ;-)