Month: July 2013

Off to Cardiff for the weekend with me ma and pa and my sisters family. Not far for us to go, so on a roasting hot Friday we ventured into the big smoke of Wales. The Mariott is quite an awkward place to get to by car if you have not done it before, but we had little problem finding our selves within the car park.

Luckily mother had been there for a bit, and was already primed with a jug of Pimms, quick order later and a frosty Stella was on its way down. After a pint or two we checked in and realised that they charge fifteen, yep fifteen pounds a night parking the robbing shits. So for three cars we had to pay near a ton just to park!.

Couple more beers and the rest of the crew arrived, so we popped off for an earlyish supper at Nandos. Generally speaking Nandos is good, you know what you are getting, and at less than a ton for the eight of us it was cheaper than parking. extra hot Nandos goes down a treat and everyone pretty much enjoyed it.

We had a little walk around the city, just before it got too rowdy – and were soon back in the hotel for a final one before bed.

Next day we were up and about, and after collecting a picnic we headed over to St Fagens. Although before we left I realised that I didn’t have the car keys, and couldn’t remember having them since leaving te car – which is very unusual for me. Anyway, luckily;y they were in the hotel safe, so someone had picked them up – thankfully.

Decent place St Fagens, its billed as the Museum of Welsh Life, and they ensure all the staff can speak Welsh, which is a great touch. They have rebuild, brick my brick in most cases, a variety of houses from various times in history. Its free to get in, which is a bit daft really, and there is a lot to see. We knew the weather was going to break about 14:00, so we had our stroll and picnic just before the rain started. We had literally got in the car to leave when the pitter patter started.

Nipped over to Queen Street once back in Cardiff and took the train down the Bay – unfortunately it was still raining, so we had a walk around and a very stuffy pint, then back on the train ready for a cocktail before supper. We went over the Yard just after 17:00 for the cocktail happy hour and it was packed – there are so many hen and stag nights going on its incredible. We managed to get a seat near the rain and had a switfy before Jamie’s.

We had booked into Jamie’s Italian, which is an Italian. And has something to do with a fake, mokney dribbler. The staff were overly fakely nice, and the music was too loud (they did turn that down a touch) and they missed quite a few things out. The food was good though –  well, mine was and I am always on the lookout for a moan. Great bread to start, and the calamari was excellent. I had the special for mains, which was the bream with mussels – and very nice it was too – also had a few “Funky chips” – all in all I liked it – but it wasn’t something I would normally order.

The cheeky sods slyed on a 10% service charge, and forgot to take our gold card discount off (Jamie’s Gold Card membership is worth getting if you ever go – its free and you get some stuff.) and the alcohol is expensive (as it is everywhere) but its okay – he is really on to a good thing with these – they were packed – stupid really, he is only putting his daft name to it, and there are better Italians in Cardiff anyway.

Beer in the hotel and a £1:55 glass of milk, then bed – ready for another massive breakie and home sweet home.

Cardiff is a good place to go, everything is close, there are many restaurants and pubs and there are quite a few things to do – living so close though means that its lost some of its excitement.

7/10

I hate this place. But I also love it.

Got there early doors, and already the car park was filling nicely. There was already a big queue for the monorail (monorail, That’s right monorail – I hear those things are awfully load – no, it glides as softly as a cloud…)  so we walked the walk into the park – which I am not sure I have done before, but it was easy to find as we just followed the other 20,000 people. Luckily the entrance was quiet and we walked straight in.

So, Smiler was the big attraction, so the plan was to queue on that, then get some fast tracks for the other big ones, and be leaving the park at 12:00 (well, the last bit was my plan, the others were not signed up to that) we saw the queue for smiler, then were told that the end of the queue was actually arouhnd the corner and out of sight. But we stood and prepared for the wait. It took ages until the ride actually took passengers, then the queue started moving quite well, and after 1.5 hrs we were about 30 mins away from the most inverted ride in the world (thats *IN*verted). But then, there was a massive clunk, and (according to newspaper reports – which were boll0x) a massive piece of the track fell off. We waitewd and waited and waited and then after 15 minutes we gave up. We saw that the contestants in the carriages (which were back at the station) were going to be rescued so we left – the ride was closed all day, and it still is i think days later.

We had a look at other ride times and decided to try Rita with a half hour queue. After 45 minutes we were nearing the end and that bloody well broke down. We were promised fast track tickets for it, but we couldn’t find where we would get them from so at 12:00 we had queued since 9:30 and not been on anything. I was not in the best of moods.

Food time, and a quite reasonable seven quid later I had a burger, chips and coke aand we started queuing for air. Now that was 25 min queue and it really was, I had only just finished my nosh when we borded. Probably not the best idea. Kate had a little panic when she was waiting for the ride to start, but here she was, on the first big coaster of her life, and it was ready to swing her around to face the floor, and possible death.

Air is good, but scares me more than any other ride. I don’t like the fact that if the harness opened you would have to try to hang on – actually the ride that scares me the most is the cable cars. After Air we went onto the Nemisis – which was only about a 20 min wait was well, and then we made our way back to Oblivion.

Earlier in the day there were 40 minute queues for this, so a little apprehensively we climbed the route to the top, and there was nothing – no queue what so ever – we went straight on, I could not believe it. Oblivion is fab. It takes you up to the top of a big drop and then holds you at the top for a second or so before dropping you done and into a hole int he ground. It really truly takes your breath away. On this first attempt I honestly could not breath – its immense.

Kate loved it, so we went on again.

We went back on Rita which I don’t like too much and then on Th1rteen – which is unusual and quite enjoyable and after finding the log flume was shut it was time to pay for parking – the cheeky monkeys, and queue for the monorail back.

After a couple of hours in the car we were safely back home. Was a shame we didn’t do Smiler, but at least Kate experienced some pretty cool rides on here first day of being tall enough…

So we went “oop north” this weekend, well up North for us anyway.

We had tickets to see the Alton Towers place, so needed a stop off on the Saturday. As we had never been to Uttoxeter we thought we would try there, and as we pretty much had to go through Stafford to get there I thought I would take the family around the old haunts of mine when I was a student back in 1990.

Great journey up, until we got to Junt 13, and the road into Stafford was shut, so we continued up the M6 and got off on the next one. It was weird coming back into Stafford, the old places were either closed – KFC, or still there – the original Balti house. We parked up and took a waltz in,

Although I didn’t spend much time in Stafford center itself, the place looked vaguely familiar, Bird in the Hand was one place we went, the union seems to be a court now, and the roads and streets looked something like they did before. We only stuck a couple of hours on the car, so we made a b-line for the Bear Inn – which did some great burgers. This was another place I used to go occasionally, but it seemed so much smaller than it was!

Anyway – had a look around, then back in the car for a trip down to Brooke Court in Milton Grove. It wasn’t there – it had been torn down some years back, and on the site a number of new houses. The flat opposite was still there though – it must have been worth saving..

Across town and over to Bodmin Avenue to see the old place, then round to the Linton Tavern which was now closed. Back to Beconside and off to Uttoxeter.

Uttoxeter is shit.

The Premier Inn was hot, and afer a short walk in, we got to the town which was scary. We go to quite a few places, but this was something out of a zombie Apocalypse. Everyone looked off their nuts on heroin, although we saw no trouble, it was not somewhere I was confortable with. We walked around the town, which as far as the shops go isn’t the worst place we have been to, and found the chinese we planned to use later. Then we headed to a pub – and there was not much choice – and we have been in some real dives before. We settled on Wetherspoons, which was the best of a worrying bunch and settled in for a couple of beers. After a Stella, Amstel and a couple of Heinekens we were off to Woo’s.

The Chinese was packed, but we managed to get a tiny table near the entrance, and filled ourselves with rice, beef, port and satay chicken – it was pretty good nosh to be fair, and for us, the location – a little out of the way behind a screen was ideal!!!

Back home and after a couple of beers the place was not quite so scary and back to the hot hot room for zed’s before the Alton mission.

Ha ha we went to Willey.

It was the wedding of the year, well the only wedding of year up near Rugby in a tiny hamlet called Willey. It was the wedding of our nephew James on Sian’s side of the family, and they had planned to have it “outside”..

So they picked the right day for it, this weekend has been the hottest of the year so far, and may well be the best of the year in total. We arrived at around 14:00, to meet up in the local pub, it was pretty warm, but before I had taking a decent slug of my ice cold Stella I was on parking duties and had to park up our two cars, in someones big long drive. Should be easy, it wasn’t, I was parking in the wrong place, and had two of the householders coming to tell me off – our car was no problem, no one noticed me, by the time I brought Becs car over the parking attendants were out in force, and with no air con I was sweating cobs.

Got back to my pint and it was now steaming over, but it was still colder than me. The sweat was staining, I couldn’t hear due to water build up, and I realised I should have worn a vest. Managed to get in the shade and started to cool down a little, when we were called to the ceremony – in a field, at 15:00, in the sun. Even the cows went to seek some shade.

The ceremony was a “Humanitarianism” one. Don’t know what it means, but no imaginary people were mentioned and it was quite good. As soon as possible we heading to the massive marque for tea and scones. And discovered the FREE bar, yep free – ace.

Tea and scones and San Miguel then a couple of speeches the best “man” (who dramatically was a woman) was pretty good, and the groom was especially tearful.

The rest of the day involved sitting in the shade, taking trips to the portaloo, which was an especially fine example – although it was like a sauna inside (I don’t mean it was full of half clothed people, sweating over themselves – just hot). Picking up free beer and water and coke and stuff, and then eating a pretty good BBQ later on – great sausage, chicken and lamb burgers.

They had a great band on, playing swingy jazz, but we left earlyish to let the youngsters enjoy the beerred up rest of the evening – so we were back in the hotel by 11:00.

Good day, fantastic weather, top food and a free bar – how could it be better!!!..