If you read my communications regularly then you will be aware that I spend some of my time in the Midlands. Mostly the West Midlands but I’m not sure where the divide is.
Way back in May I went with Sally to the Stockton Locks on the Grand Union Canal. Here’s a Wikipedia page about it all. The locks are quite impressive and the pub near them, The Blue Lias, was very nice too.
I also have been to Hatton Locks, which are part of the Grand Union Canal. These are even more impressive. There was a pub nearby but we didn’t go in as we were heading home from Packwood House and it was raining and cold.
I have been very impressed with the industrial history of the Midlands and as much as I knew that existed it is nice to see it in person and appreciate it more.
Anyway, I decided to change the lock screen on my iPhone to a picture of locks. I initially had this picture of Stockton Locks.
Stockton Locks
However I now have this picture of Hatton Locks as my lock screen.
Hatton Locks
I will tell you that every time I look at this screen I chuckle. My lock screen is a series of locks.
Over a weekend in the summer Sally and I travelled to the North Sea coast and Lincolnshire. We drove from Rugby, towards Leicester and then followed the A46 to Lincoln and the coast. We had booked to spend a night on a campsite near Mablethorpe. The campsite was called Grange Leisure Park and was predominantly a caravan park but with good camping facilities. We didn’t use my tent [see this communication for a picture of that], we used Sally’s. It’s a pretty good summer tent although not quite as nuclear proof as my gorgeous Vango!
We arrived, set up base camp and then headed to Mablethorpe to experience the Great British seaside. Oh, wow, it didn’t disappoint. It was a classic seaside town. There was plenty of shops selling tat. Plenty of punters on holiday and a few crazy golf courses. One of the purposes of this trip was to start a crazy golf championship between Sally and me. Our aim was to play as many of these courses as possible along the coast in the two days we had planned to be there.
Within Mablethorpe we found the following courses: Pirate Hill, a win to Sally. Pirate not on the hill, a win to Ian. Dinosaur Park, a win to Sally.
Dinosaur Valley
Pirate Hill
So after that we spent some money in an arcade. It was fascinating. It was a huge place where you can win tickets for playing the machines. We won about 50 tickets quite quickly but then realised you need well over 1000 tickets to claim a prize. We just gave our tickets to someone at a ticket counting machine. We also played some of the “tipping point” games because they are quite fun, whereas the TV show is utter shite. So, at this point Sally was winning the golf competition and we looked around for somewhere to eat dinner. I found the Kings Head a few miles away and we travelled there for food. It was quite a “local” pub but was also friendly and welcoming. The food was delicious and very impressive, it was nice to be treated well and have the chef actually speak to us about what to eat.
The Lincolnshire coast is a rather amazing place if you like caravans, static or otherwise. We spent some time looking at the caravans for sale at the camp site and I was also amazed at the number of re-sale places along our journeys.
2-1 down now. @trusmoov — Ian Parish (@iparish) August 20, 2015
On the second day we packed up camp and headed along the coast road after having breakfast and another round of golf at Queen’s Park in Mablethorpe. Sally won this round. I was 3-1 down in the series. Breakfast was good though!
We drove towards Anderby Creek, a place that Sally had visited as a child. I’d not been there as far as I know. The only Lincolnshire coast place I’d been to was RAF Donna Nook in the 1980s. I think I wrote about it here. Anderby Creek was a small place with chalets and caravans. We spent time on the beach flying the kites and then had morning tea in the restaurant near the Cloud Bar. By the way, a cloud bar isn’t a bar. It’s a platform from where you can look at the clouds [because you can’t do that from ground level!].
Here’s us flying kites. I managed to mess up my control cables and so had to order more from Amazon. It turns out there’s a kite specialist shop in Hinkley which is close-ish to Rugby.
After Anderby we headed to Chapel St Leonards. The beach here was quite nice and there was another arcade we visited. But this trip was about the crazy golf and so we managed to find a course just outside Chapel on the road south to Skegness. The course was based on a theme of elephants and I managed to win this one. It was now 4-2 to Sally.
It was now time to head to Ingoldmells. This is a part of Skegness to the north of the town. There was a theme park where entry was free and you just have to pay for the rides. There were some awesome ice cream shops and the whole place was manically busy. There were also plenty of caravans. Check out the aerial view of the town and spot just how many caravans are packed into the area.
We had a wander around and ate some food at a fish and chip shop. I have to say I found the whole experience rather surreal. It was a very odd place. We found two crazy golf places. We played an indoor course which was reasonable fun. I won that. Then we found a Pirate course that was suspended above the beach. I also won that. The scores on the doors were 4-5 to me. I felt quite pleased at this although Sally wasn’t happy about it.
The journey home took a while. We skirted Skegness and headed home via Boston and Grantham as there were awful roadworks on the way to the coast near Newark. We also went through Melton Mowbray. I did my best to avoid heading to Coningsby, Cranwell, Waddington and the air museum near Newark. One day I will do a tour of the RAF bases of Lincolnshire.
Before I start on the film I would just like to mention some ‘ealth and safety gone mad. There was a popcorn making dude working two popcorn machines in an alcove behind the concessions stand. I kid you not he was wearing one of these:
Now, I’m not sure what the issue is, as the popping cookers are closed while the popping process is in play but this made me giggle, quite a bit!
So, the film. You can read about it and the synopsis and where it all takes place. My opinion of Apple has always been one of suspicion and, although I am an iPhone whore, I am perfectly aware that Apple always steal other ideas and make them that little bit better. I don’t think they really do for originality. They do great design.
As a film this was very well made. I liked the shooting and the actors. I liked knowing a bit more about the history and seeing the characters over time. I did NOT like Steve Jobs. I had already read about him being an arse and this film [I know it’s fiction] largely represented him as an arse. Do I think he was a clever man? Yes. Do I like Apple products? Yes. Do I have to like him or think he was great? No.
This film is well worth seeing. I enjoyed it. Even though Jobs was an arse.
I have some good friends. Back in the summer a good friend, AG, leant me his Mazda MX5 for a weekend. I think I picked it up on a Friday evening and then returned it late afternoon on the Sunday. I would have to say that it is a great little car, really fun to drive. Sally and I explored the countryside around Kent and also took a trip into London.
So, we bombed around Kent. I drove the car out and about and we went to Scotney Castle. It was pretty good weather while we were there, but we didn’t go into the Castle itself as we would have to pay around £14 each. We did walk around the grounds and suffered a short while with fine rain.
It was soon lunchtime and so we drove to the Three Chimneys pub near Biddenden. The Mazda looked good in the car park. Lunch was nice, I had Welsh Rarebit and Sally had a posh sausage roll.
After that we visited the Biddenden Vineyard shop to purchase some of their fine cider. I had been persuaded to try some of this by Sally. I’d never really enjoyed cider before, especially from the pub, I just didn’t like it. This real cider from a decent maker was really tasty. When leaving the car park for the vineyard I *may* have wheel spun and also handbraked a turn a little, you know, just for kicks.
From there we drove through the fine countryside of Kent towards a hairdressers shop in Parkwood, Maidstone. Sunday morning was going to be interesting and Sally wanted to make sure her hair looked awesome.
Sunday was a special-get-up-early day. We had to get ready for a photoshoot in London. For some reason, mainly my exhibitionism, we had met a photographer at a club night and she wanted to expand her portfolio and offered us a free photoshoot. This took a while and plenty of emails to arrange but organise it we did. We dressed, did make up and checked hair before driving in the Mazda to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. We had to keep the roof of the car up for most of the journey else hair would have been blown around and looked bad.
We found [free] parking and met Marisa, our photographer. We then spent about 2 hours posing in various locations around the square. Onlookers aplenty were staring and some cheeky fuckers (mostly men) even took photos of us (or mostly of Sally) as we posed in the street. The results of the official photos are stunning and we are both really happy. We will be ordering some for the walls.
As the photos were now complete we decided to tour around parts of London with the roof down. I had sunglasses on so my make up didn’t show too much and Sally wore extra clothes to keep warm. We toured around the Embankment, Trafalgar Square but we couldn’t get to Buckingham Palace as The Mall was closed.
After wandering around London we drove home and got changed. It wasn’t long until it was time to give the car back. It was great fun to have and drive around. I want to do it again, or maybe buy my own.
We plan to explore the Midlands and Cotswolds and so a Mazda would be very good for this. I’ll have to ask AG if I can borrow it again! Maybe even for a week!
I went with Sally to a 4D cinema to see this film on 25th Aug 2015. In reality I went to see a 4D film and it just happened to be this one. There were other films on but they weren’t very action based or at the right time. Jurassic World it was.
The film itself was poor. I rated it a 4 on IMDB, see this communication about my ratings.
The 4D effects though were quite interesting. The row of seats upon which I sat all moved together, so when the helicopter flew our seats tilted left, right, forwards and backwards. If there was a gust of wind in the film there were (noisy) fans that blew air into us. When the camera got water over it we were sprayed with a fine mist from the chair in front. There were “knockers” in the rear of the seat so I felt like I was punched in the back and there were things that made my trousers move near my calves.
Overall I am glad that I experienced this but I don’t think I would pay to do it again. I don’t even like 3D films, the idea of spending extra money to get kicked in the back doesn’t excite me. If the film maker can’t make a film interesting enough in 2D then it will still be shit in 3 or 4D.
I saw this over the summer break with Sally. It was ok. That’s about it. I think it was entertaining, but not a film I’d bother to watch again if it was on TV.
I recently rated this on IMDB.
On the 13 Sept 2015 I saw the Avro Vulcan fly for my last time. I was geocaching with Sally near Coventry airport when I checked twitter and saw that the Vulcan XH558 had taken off from Doncaster heading to Coventry for a display. This wasn’t on the official list of shows that she was doing but I was excited and ran the mile or so to the end of the runway.
Vulcan confirmed serviceable, leaving Doncaster circuit enroute to Coventry.
Before XH558 was due to arrive there was a short display by a Gloster Meteor and a DeHavilland Vampire.
Gloster Meteor
Once these two planes had landed I could see the Vulcan in the distance. I had seen her recently while I was at RAF Cosford and the noise was stunning. It had been a long time since I had seen a Vulcan fly. I used to watch them at airshows in the 80s. The noise then was always incredible and I distinctly remember an occasion at a Duxford Airshow when she made my stomach shake. The Vulcan flew past a few times and did some lovely throttle-up manoeuvres. All in all it was great to see her fly for my last time. I’m glad I ran the short distance to the runway.
XH558Vulcan
It’s a sad thing that she won’t fly again, but a good thing that she did.
XH558 has landed safely. Thank you for following. — XH558 (@XH558) September 13, 2015
I’ve been doing something at weekends to keep me busy and outdoors seeing parts of the countryside!I first heard about geocaching at work where I had helped a colleague solve some puzzles. I hadn’t really thought much about it until recently when I was persuaded to have a go with Sally.
We started geocaching around Rugby, just to see what it was like and what we could expect. We have since done quite a bit and seen some lovely places around the country, mostly with the excuse of going there to find some caches.
Current places we have been to just for the cache:
Dunchurch
Ryton Waters
Baginton
Buttermere
Herne Bay
Mote Park
The Fosse Way
Claybrooke Magna and Claybrooke Parva
Coombe Abbey
As you won’t know as I think my status picture will update, I am currently on 99 finds. I’d like the next one to be special but I doubt it is going to be that, probably a boring cache.
Anyway, it’s good fun and a good reason to get out and about.
