The macaroni cheese was vile, in my opinion. I suspect I ballsed up the sauce making, because it was fuzzy. Oliver hates fuzzy stuff (he won't eat blended soups for this reason). Oliver's friend seemed to like it though, so the poor bugger got dispatched home with the leftovers on Saturday night ha ha. His Mum texted me today to say it was lovely and her kids wolfed it back. There is no accounting for taste.
The golf competition was a disaster. Seemingly there was a disagreement over green fees and to cut a long story (thankfully) shorter - they didn't take part in the competition. They ended up playing a round with my parents at 'their' golf course, which is posher, and apparently Oliver played a blinder. Always nice when your kid impresses your parents. There is some kind of 'wrong' pleasure in basking in the vicarious glory....
And I had a shitty shift at work all day today and have sent a strongly worded email to the department manager which she will pick up in the morning. It started off with 'whilst I appreciate the difficulty you have with...' which is invariably followed by 'however I think it unacceptable that......' Gulp.
I stopped off at Tesco on the way home to buy a bottle of wine. Because the half bottle I have in the fridge suddenly did not seem nearly enough.
Still, Downton Abbey tonight.
Sunday, 16 September 2012
Saturday, 15 September 2012
meanderings, MQ6 and macaroni cheese.
Back into the swing and all that this week, and Oliver's new schedule has gone very nicely indeed. AND he is reading - on a daily basis. Pick me up from where I have fallen off my chair.
On Tuesday, accompanied by my Mum, we headed off to.....MQ6 yay! The intention was Dawlish, but this was closed. Obviously this discovery was made after I had coughed up for the car park pay and display. Muttering and cursing aside, I decided to postpone this one and pop along to the next seaside town - Teignmouth.
I found this museum 'OK'. Not brilliant, not rubbish, it was - OK and served very well as a substitute for my original intention. We would have had to visit this one anyhow, so all is not lost. It had a (not surprisingly) seasidey theme running through it. I asked the lady at reception if there was any sort of 'quiz' or 'thing' for kids and she informed me that there were interactive things in the museum for children. The word 'lame' sprang to mind, but I left it there and thanked her politely. That's me - Mrs Polite. In my head I have often hung, drawn and quartered people before the second syllable of the word 'hello' leaves their lips.
So, another museum is ticked off the list. 42 to go. Incidentally, a good 'friend' of mine (with a kid the same age as Oliver in school) reacted with such horrified dismay at my museum quest idea that I was quite stunned by it. She called Oliver a 'poor lad' for having to endure such a boring scheme and I had to remind myself to close my mouth as my jaw had dropped open in mute surprise at her strong opinion. Now I am no stranger to strong opinions, having voiced a few of them myself over the years, but she really took me aback and I found myself on the defensive back foot. To my mind, Oliver and I going out together and sharing time talking, listening, looking, loving, experiencing and being is so valuable and incomparable to anything a school environment could offer him that I am again astonished it could be so challenged. I calmly and firmly explained this the best I could to her, and she accepted it, although I don't think she 'gets' it.
What she will see in years to come though, I believe, is that time is a great leveller, and that her son and mine will, in 'achievement' status be - give or take - on an equal footing. The big difference I think will be that my son has had the security of developing emotionally away from the pressures of the playground and his belief in himself will not be shaken nor will his desire to seek friendships be undermined by confidence issues. She also asked me if I would be setting him any SATS next year..... after I had laughed out loud and said no, why? she said that if she were me she would want to know where he was compared to school kids of the same age. With some incredulity in my voice I replied no, I didn't need to know how he compared to school kids, and that I didn't give a shit anyhow. We moved on to talk about other things.
Hmm, what else.
Bit of baking, bit of crochet, you know how it is. Last night we ate at Pizza Hut and Oliver had macaroni cheese. The pasta was not macaroni, and I strongly suspect the sauce had not seen much real cheese. Despite these culinary insults, he loved it. So tonight, for tea for him and his friend (who thankfully eats anything I cook apart from bacon, and no, he is not Jewish), I am doing macaroni cheese. This has sent me into a state of gibbering recipe searching. I have made this dish twice before, both pretty unsuccessfully it has to be said. This time however, I have this on my side:
The author has sought out lots of different versions of 'classics', tried them all, reported on her findings and tweaked them to her liking. What a bloody good idea. Her macaroni cheese has cheddar, parmesan and gruyere cheese in it. There is no way that my dish is going to taste anything like the dish he had last night and I sense temper tantrums on the horizon. I also feel under pressure to perform as last night at the restarant Mark said to Oliver 'Mum can make a much better macaroni cheese than that.' Gulp. I bloody doubt it.
On Tuesday, accompanied by my Mum, we headed off to.....MQ6 yay! The intention was Dawlish, but this was closed. Obviously this discovery was made after I had coughed up for the car park pay and display. Muttering and cursing aside, I decided to postpone this one and pop along to the next seaside town - Teignmouth.
I found this museum 'OK'. Not brilliant, not rubbish, it was - OK and served very well as a substitute for my original intention. We would have had to visit this one anyhow, so all is not lost. It had a (not surprisingly) seasidey theme running through it. I asked the lady at reception if there was any sort of 'quiz' or 'thing' for kids and she informed me that there were interactive things in the museum for children. The word 'lame' sprang to mind, but I left it there and thanked her politely. That's me - Mrs Polite. In my head I have often hung, drawn and quartered people before the second syllable of the word 'hello' leaves their lips.
So, another museum is ticked off the list. 42 to go. Incidentally, a good 'friend' of mine (with a kid the same age as Oliver in school) reacted with such horrified dismay at my museum quest idea that I was quite stunned by it. She called Oliver a 'poor lad' for having to endure such a boring scheme and I had to remind myself to close my mouth as my jaw had dropped open in mute surprise at her strong opinion. Now I am no stranger to strong opinions, having voiced a few of them myself over the years, but she really took me aback and I found myself on the defensive back foot. To my mind, Oliver and I going out together and sharing time talking, listening, looking, loving, experiencing and being is so valuable and incomparable to anything a school environment could offer him that I am again astonished it could be so challenged. I calmly and firmly explained this the best I could to her, and she accepted it, although I don't think she 'gets' it.
What she will see in years to come though, I believe, is that time is a great leveller, and that her son and mine will, in 'achievement' status be - give or take - on an equal footing. The big difference I think will be that my son has had the security of developing emotionally away from the pressures of the playground and his belief in himself will not be shaken nor will his desire to seek friendships be undermined by confidence issues. She also asked me if I would be setting him any SATS next year..... after I had laughed out loud and said no, why? she said that if she were me she would want to know where he was compared to school kids of the same age. With some incredulity in my voice I replied no, I didn't need to know how he compared to school kids, and that I didn't give a shit anyhow. We moved on to talk about other things.
Hmm, what else.
Bit of baking, bit of crochet, you know how it is. Last night we ate at Pizza Hut and Oliver had macaroni cheese. The pasta was not macaroni, and I strongly suspect the sauce had not seen much real cheese. Despite these culinary insults, he loved it. So tonight, for tea for him and his friend (who thankfully eats anything I cook apart from bacon, and no, he is not Jewish), I am doing macaroni cheese. This has sent me into a state of gibbering recipe searching. I have made this dish twice before, both pretty unsuccessfully it has to be said. This time however, I have this on my side:
The author has sought out lots of different versions of 'classics', tried them all, reported on her findings and tweaked them to her liking. What a bloody good idea. Her macaroni cheese has cheddar, parmesan and gruyere cheese in it. There is no way that my dish is going to taste anything like the dish he had last night and I sense temper tantrums on the horizon. I also feel under pressure to perform as last night at the restarant Mark said to Oliver 'Mum can make a much better macaroni cheese than that.' Gulp. I bloody doubt it.
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Goodness ME...
...gardening is bloody hard work. Just popped down the garden (and please do remember - it is DOWN the garden, and therefore a fair old way back UP afterwards...) to dig over a bed, plop on compost and cover the whole lot over as I've had enough of the growing season already. I know, I know, I am a nature philistine. I managed about a third of a bed before I had sweat dripping down my forehead and the crack of my arse. You have to know these things to be able to share in my discomfort. I bore the hideousness of uncovering the compost heap aka insects-of-the-world home in order to scatter a pathetic amount of rotted down goodness on top, and then covered with plastic. Bye bye til next April (May if I can get away with it. I am truly not a natural in the garden.)
Now to the indoor life, to which I find I am best suited. I have finished - THIS!
I never thought I would get to the end of this before I reached the end of crocheting as a hobby. But, I dug in, et voila. I started this in France last September. Oliver chose the colours, which I hated and complained bitterly about as each row passed, but I realised as it went on that actually, they looked pretty sharp. Here it is on my bed, just for show, as Oliver's bed is just too untidy and full of stuff to get a half decent pic.
He likes it. Result.
And, joy of joys - the school is no longer out for summer. Everywhere is now free of irritated parents ignoring their badly behaved offspring. I love, love. love this time of year. It also heralds the start of Autumn - Autumnal loveliness such as smoky bonfire air, dimpsy evenings and the wonderful cooling of temperatures which draw me to the outdoors more than the sunshine ever could. And there is Halloween, bonfire night and the promise of Christmas to come. WaaaHAAAAAYYY!!!!!
Oliver has (with a little prompting/suggestion) drawn up a new schedule for the coming few months:
Note the gaps. They are self-awarded time off for good behaviour slots, methinks.
And I am more than ready to welcome back a little routine into our lives. Over the summer 'school' work stopped and we ticked along with the MQ, and the Summer Reading Challenge. This challenge, initiated by Oliver, needed constant prodding towards this goal:
Six whole books read over the school hols. This is some achievement for him, given his irrational dislike of reading. The regularity of this task however, has clearly improved his reading skills and he reads pretty fluently, with intonation and a clear understanding of punctuation and passages spoken by the characters. Blimey, that looks like a piece from a school report. Anyhoo, 'we' have introduced 'book review' into the schedule on a fortnightly basis, the idea being that he will read on a daily basis and write a review at the end of it. This is a really big suck it and see.
Oliver's keenness on golf continues, and this morning the golf coach suggested he enter a competition next week as long as he has an adult with him who can play golf. I feel completely justified in putting Mark forward for this despite his apparent horror at the idea - he used to play golf, and this is one of those things which is a Dad job, becuase Dad plays golf, and Mum don't. Can't wait to see how it goes.
Lead on McDuff.
Now to the indoor life, to which I find I am best suited. I have finished - THIS!
He likes it. Result.
And, joy of joys - the school is no longer out for summer. Everywhere is now free of irritated parents ignoring their badly behaved offspring. I love, love. love this time of year. It also heralds the start of Autumn - Autumnal loveliness such as smoky bonfire air, dimpsy evenings and the wonderful cooling of temperatures which draw me to the outdoors more than the sunshine ever could. And there is Halloween, bonfire night and the promise of Christmas to come. WaaaHAAAAAYYY!!!!!
Oliver has (with a little prompting/suggestion) drawn up a new schedule for the coming few months:
Note the gaps. They are self-awarded time off for good behaviour slots, methinks.
And I am more than ready to welcome back a little routine into our lives. Over the summer 'school' work stopped and we ticked along with the MQ, and the Summer Reading Challenge. This challenge, initiated by Oliver, needed constant prodding towards this goal:
Six whole books read over the school hols. This is some achievement for him, given his irrational dislike of reading. The regularity of this task however, has clearly improved his reading skills and he reads pretty fluently, with intonation and a clear understanding of punctuation and passages spoken by the characters. Blimey, that looks like a piece from a school report. Anyhoo, 'we' have introduced 'book review' into the schedule on a fortnightly basis, the idea being that he will read on a daily basis and write a review at the end of it. This is a really big suck it and see.
Oliver's keenness on golf continues, and this morning the golf coach suggested he enter a competition next week as long as he has an adult with him who can play golf. I feel completely justified in putting Mark forward for this despite his apparent horror at the idea - he used to play golf, and this is one of those things which is a Dad job, becuase Dad plays golf, and Mum don't. Can't wait to see how it goes.
Lead on McDuff.
Sunday, 2 September 2012
MQ#5 Topsham
Topsham is a little town on the outskirts of Exeter which is tres posh and full of old people, as they are the only ones who can afford to live there. It is also very pretty, being based on the estuary of the river Exe and was once an important quay/port. The streets are narrow and the houses quaint, and I usually end up peeping into windows and yearning to live there with the smell of outdoors and seaweed permeating the air. Then I realise there is nowhere to park and realise I would be trapped in Topsham, at the mercy of public transport and I snap back into the real world....
So, MQ5. This was housed in such a pretty building, right on the front in The Strand, with a garden across the road. It was so picturesque.
There is, inevitably, maritime history.
And one of these, which actually, I realised I had never seen before in real life. They are bloody huge.
I found this interesting:
It is the nightdress worn by Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind (I think on the morning after she was ravished by Clark Gable). She was seemingly married to Leigh Holman (the 'Leigh' part of her name), who was from Topsham and remained on very good terms with both him and his sister after their divorce. She kept up a friendship with the sister in particular (Dorothy Holman) and it is she who lived in the house which is now the museum.
Oliver, of course, found this all unutterably dull, and found solace in the 'find the rubber spider trail' and cake.
He did find this fun and interesting though,
and it is this which he chose to write his little piece about. Basically it demonstrates effectively how a load is moved by a system of pulleys and ropes, and that the more ropes and pulleys in a system - the easier the load is to move. Simple physics, and simply smart.
After this little jaunt, we headed back into Exeter for Oliver's swimming lesson. As I had my camera on me and spied him through the glass, I thought I'd take the oppo to take a sneaky pic. Although I 'get' why you can't take pics at the public pool, it still pisses me off that I could never have a photo of my own kid learning to swim.
Imagine then, if you will, my horror when the flash unexpectedly went off. It was as if a bolt of lightning had come from above to strike me down for my wickedness. I just looked down at the table and fiddled with my camera and pretended that it was nothing to do with me. Ooh I am so naughty. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. HA! Wondered if I could get that one in.
So, MQ5. This was housed in such a pretty building, right on the front in The Strand, with a garden across the road. It was so picturesque.
There is, inevitably, maritime history.
And one of these, which actually, I realised I had never seen before in real life. They are bloody huge.
I found this interesting:
It is the nightdress worn by Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind (I think on the morning after she was ravished by Clark Gable). She was seemingly married to Leigh Holman (the 'Leigh' part of her name), who was from Topsham and remained on very good terms with both him and his sister after their divorce. She kept up a friendship with the sister in particular (Dorothy Holman) and it is she who lived in the house which is now the museum.
Oliver, of course, found this all unutterably dull, and found solace in the 'find the rubber spider trail' and cake.
He did find this fun and interesting though,
and it is this which he chose to write his little piece about. Basically it demonstrates effectively how a load is moved by a system of pulleys and ropes, and that the more ropes and pulleys in a system - the easier the load is to move. Simple physics, and simply smart.
After this little jaunt, we headed back into Exeter for Oliver's swimming lesson. As I had my camera on me and spied him through the glass, I thought I'd take the oppo to take a sneaky pic. Although I 'get' why you can't take pics at the public pool, it still pisses me off that I could never have a photo of my own kid learning to swim.
Imagine then, if you will, my horror when the flash unexpectedly went off. It was as if a bolt of lightning had come from above to strike me down for my wickedness. I just looked down at the table and fiddled with my camera and pretended that it was nothing to do with me. Ooh I am so naughty. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. HA! Wondered if I could get that one in.
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Masterchef
Oliver is really interested in food. He likes watching cookery shows and asks me to buy all sorts of 'interesting' foodstuffs at the supermarket, which he subsequently spits out and refuses to eat. He knows a fair bit about nutrition and has picked up many (useless) tips from countless episodes of Masterchef. (Useless largely because the chances of us preparing salsify and needing to immediately keep it in acidulated water or having to remove the beak from a fresh squid seem a little unlikely). He has wanted to cook a meal for us for some time, and the desire to do so flared up again at the weekend. In the past, his desire to undergo this mammoth operation has been thwarted by a few things; firstly, he wanted to dream up his own menu. To be applauded for sure, but financially impractical as he was very extravagant in his food choices, and there was no guarantee I could step in and salvage any potential disasters. Secondly, the idea of actually writing down any ideas/recipes from books filled him with horror. Thirdly I would just lose my temper with the whole thing and it would get postponed indefinitely.
Happily, these things have not put him off completely, and bank holiday Monday saw us tripping off to the local Waitrose (yes, we are posh shoppers on occasion) to purchase ingredients from a real live list drawn up by my little chef.
He chose to do pork with apple and mustard (Fay Ripley) for us, and a chard and ricotta tart (River Cottage) for Mark. Nightmare. I tried (without success) to steer him towards the 'ooh, lets have something the three of us can eat so you only need to cook one thing' idea, but he was having none of it. Hell's teeth. AND we had to buy chard. Chard!!!! After years of having the national chard mountain growing in the garden, this year we had - none.
Although the whole operation called for what felt like hours in the kitchen, (it was a long time), I had to admire his application.
In the end, the pork was undercooked and had to go back in, so the three of us sat down to enjoy the tart. It tasted beautiful, but hadn't set enough (despite being in at the right temperature for the right length of time) and was very runny. This bloody annoys me with cookbooks. I had suspected the pork wouldn't be done, but put my faith into the recipe anyhow. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I am really proud of Oliver for the massive efforts he put into this, and it all tasted wonderful. (We had the pork the next day for lunch in the end - sliced and warmed through in the oven with the appley-mustardy sauce. Bloody lovely.
I have been doing a spot of baking myself lately, and did the red velvet cupcakes from the HB pixie book. They were fabuloso, and my confidence with cupcakes is growing daily. I was therefore delighted with the arrival of these:
A selection from the Book People - this little lot came to just under £30 including delivery, which I think is brilliant. (sorry Kindle) Note the HB cake days book. I urge you to get this one - it is the best cake book I have ever read, and I don't think there is one thing in there I wouldn't want to have a go at. Yummers.
And finally.
There sure are moments when I wish I was my cat.
Happily, these things have not put him off completely, and bank holiday Monday saw us tripping off to the local Waitrose (yes, we are posh shoppers on occasion) to purchase ingredients from a real live list drawn up by my little chef.
He chose to do pork with apple and mustard (Fay Ripley) for us, and a chard and ricotta tart (River Cottage) for Mark. Nightmare. I tried (without success) to steer him towards the 'ooh, lets have something the three of us can eat so you only need to cook one thing' idea, but he was having none of it. Hell's teeth. AND we had to buy chard. Chard!!!! After years of having the national chard mountain growing in the garden, this year we had - none.
Although the whole operation called for what felt like hours in the kitchen, (it was a long time), I had to admire his application.
In the end, the pork was undercooked and had to go back in, so the three of us sat down to enjoy the tart. It tasted beautiful, but hadn't set enough (despite being in at the right temperature for the right length of time) and was very runny. This bloody annoys me with cookbooks. I had suspected the pork wouldn't be done, but put my faith into the recipe anyhow. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I am really proud of Oliver for the massive efforts he put into this, and it all tasted wonderful. (We had the pork the next day for lunch in the end - sliced and warmed through in the oven with the appley-mustardy sauce. Bloody lovely.
I have been doing a spot of baking myself lately, and did the red velvet cupcakes from the HB pixie book. They were fabuloso, and my confidence with cupcakes is growing daily. I was therefore delighted with the arrival of these:
A selection from the Book People - this little lot came to just under £30 including delivery, which I think is brilliant. (sorry Kindle) Note the HB cake days book. I urge you to get this one - it is the best cake book I have ever read, and I don't think there is one thing in there I wouldn't want to have a go at. Yummers.
And finally.
There sure are moments when I wish I was my cat.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
size does matter...
This is a bit of a time-killing exercise, as Match Of The Day (ruiner of weekend TV viewing) is on and I can't bear to sit in the same room. I have nothing against football, per se, I just bloody well object to it taking over the TV (and my husband's attention) Sat AND Sun evenings for the next nine months. I think, actually, I have banged on about this before, as it feels horribly familiar.....
Soooo.... here I am. Tippety tapping away. This post title refers to a problem I seem to encounter with ordering things from the Internet and then finding them to be ridiculously smaller than I had pictured in my mind. I will refer you to a children's bible I once ordered, thinking that it was the same as one my SiL had ordered - a proper book-sized book - only to find that when it came, it was teeny and you needed a bloody magnifying glass to read it, the writing was so small. SiL found this hilarious, needless to say, and this mirth was further tickled by the arrival a couple of weeks ago of a mini-easel to display my 12"x12" scrapbook layouts. This easel stands at 4.5" tall and is woefully inadequately proportioned to bear the size and weight of my layouts. Boy it sure looked bigger in the pictures. And today, my piece de resistance arrived by post - The Hummingbird Bakery book of cupcakes and muffins. When it fell out of its cardboard sheath, I threw my head back and howled with laughter. It is 5"x5" in size. It is barely thicker than a CD, and my face must have been a picture because I was expecting a library-volume sized tome. I MUST start reading the dimensions of my purchases. Goodness knows what will pop through the letterbox next.
See - ordered from Amazon - this doesn't give me the impression of 'miniature'. I must admit to having not read the description of the book as 'cute, compact gift book', but even then, in my defence I would not have expected a book the size of which would not look out of place on a pixie's mantelpiece now, would I?
Tonight I made pizzas - bases and everything, and happily guzzled three glasses of wine. I have to work early tomorrow morning and am toying with the idea of going swimming first, but the over-consumption of alcohol may not prove helpful in the plan of dragging myself out of bed and out into ever-cooler morning air.
Today I gave the Daisy ripple blanket to - well, Daisy, actually, for her birthday, and she seemed to really like it. She said that purple was her favourite colour and when I left, it was draped like a shroud across her father's cocktail cabinet. (don't ask).
Took Oliver along to golf this morning and was approached by the chap who ran the junior course he attended recently about the idea of Oliver completing a more advanced course with a view to becoming a member and playing next spring. This is something Mark and I were thinking of anyway, and I am sure that the club is very keen to encourage more juniors along anyhow, but seemed genuinely keen to impress on me how quickly Oliver has made excellent progress in just two weeks and in any case, it is always very lovely to hear your child described as an 'asset' in any given situation.
Anyhoo, I have a Linwood Barclay to tuck myself up with until an exhausted and too-brief sleep claims me.
Laters.
Soooo.... here I am. Tippety tapping away. This post title refers to a problem I seem to encounter with ordering things from the Internet and then finding them to be ridiculously smaller than I had pictured in my mind. I will refer you to a children's bible I once ordered, thinking that it was the same as one my SiL had ordered - a proper book-sized book - only to find that when it came, it was teeny and you needed a bloody magnifying glass to read it, the writing was so small. SiL found this hilarious, needless to say, and this mirth was further tickled by the arrival a couple of weeks ago of a mini-easel to display my 12"x12" scrapbook layouts. This easel stands at 4.5" tall and is woefully inadequately proportioned to bear the size and weight of my layouts. Boy it sure looked bigger in the pictures. And today, my piece de resistance arrived by post - The Hummingbird Bakery book of cupcakes and muffins. When it fell out of its cardboard sheath, I threw my head back and howled with laughter. It is 5"x5" in size. It is barely thicker than a CD, and my face must have been a picture because I was expecting a library-volume sized tome. I MUST start reading the dimensions of my purchases. Goodness knows what will pop through the letterbox next.
See - ordered from Amazon - this doesn't give me the impression of 'miniature'. I must admit to having not read the description of the book as 'cute, compact gift book', but even then, in my defence I would not have expected a book the size of which would not look out of place on a pixie's mantelpiece now, would I?
Tonight I made pizzas - bases and everything, and happily guzzled three glasses of wine. I have to work early tomorrow morning and am toying with the idea of going swimming first, but the over-consumption of alcohol may not prove helpful in the plan of dragging myself out of bed and out into ever-cooler morning air.
Today I gave the Daisy ripple blanket to - well, Daisy, actually, for her birthday, and she seemed to really like it. She said that purple was her favourite colour and when I left, it was draped like a shroud across her father's cocktail cabinet. (don't ask).
Took Oliver along to golf this morning and was approached by the chap who ran the junior course he attended recently about the idea of Oliver completing a more advanced course with a view to becoming a member and playing next spring. This is something Mark and I were thinking of anyway, and I am sure that the club is very keen to encourage more juniors along anyhow, but seemed genuinely keen to impress on me how quickly Oliver has made excellent progress in just two weeks and in any case, it is always very lovely to hear your child described as an 'asset' in any given situation.
Anyhoo, I have a Linwood Barclay to tuck myself up with until an exhausted and too-brief sleep claims me.
Laters.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.....
Well, sometimes I do. The height of summer ain't particularly my fave time of the year to be so, but yesterday saw Oliver and I strolling the 'prom' with the other grockles in Torquay on our way towards this:
It is The Riviera Wheel. Finished last Friday, it is therefore seemingly a new thing for the town, and we fancied a spin. Obvs there was no real 'spinning' involved as it moves very slowly, but it feels a lot higher when you're in there. And less safe than it appears from the ground ha ha. We got stuck at various heights as it was loading up with passengers and it was not a nice feeling swaying in the breeze suspended many feet above the rest of the world. Funny tummies all round.
See that spacky fringe? Bloody hairdresser.
Anyhoo, the reason we were in Torquay at all was to visit...
Yes! MQ#4 was underway. There is a sci-fi exhibition there for another week or so, and I thought it would be a good one for Oliver to see, and another museum under our belts. It was a nice museum, although we both came away with the impression that whilst there were several floors of 'stuff', there didn't seem to be anything in particular to hone in on. I'm not dissing it though, it was a great building and well laid out, but I certainly had a preference for the teeny one at Exmouth. I am looking forward to the smaller ones more now...
And the traffic was shit.
It is The Riviera Wheel. Finished last Friday, it is therefore seemingly a new thing for the town, and we fancied a spin. Obvs there was no real 'spinning' involved as it moves very slowly, but it feels a lot higher when you're in there. And less safe than it appears from the ground ha ha. We got stuck at various heights as it was loading up with passengers and it was not a nice feeling swaying in the breeze suspended many feet above the rest of the world. Funny tummies all round.
See that spacky fringe? Bloody hairdresser.
Anyhoo, the reason we were in Torquay at all was to visit...
Yes! MQ#4 was underway. There is a sci-fi exhibition there for another week or so, and I thought it would be a good one for Oliver to see, and another museum under our belts. It was a nice museum, although we both came away with the impression that whilst there were several floors of 'stuff', there didn't seem to be anything in particular to hone in on. I'm not dissing it though, it was a great building and well laid out, but I certainly had a preference for the teeny one at Exmouth. I am looking forward to the smaller ones more now...
And the traffic was shit.
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