Just before jetting off to Copenhagen this weekend (a post for which will be coming very soon), me, my dad and sister wandered off down to Colne for the Great British R&B Festival. Naturally, I took the camera along – but even before we set off, the sky treated me to a display of sheer beauty right outside my bedroom window, arcing over Burnley.
After I somehow (given my total lack of vehicular control) managed to perilously park our car on what felt like a 45º incline, we scrambled up the cobbled hills of Colne and began weaving our way between angry taxi drivers, drunk punters and hot-dog stalls.
With all the pubs and clubs overflowing, we decided to keep on wandering and soak up the atmosphere as the sun set. Passing a church where me and my dad had stopped for a bacon buttie at last year’s festival, we were soon wandering past an overflowing Weatherspoon’s and to the extremities of the festival.
We did take time to stop off at a Briggs family favourite, of course: the legendary Jim’s Café. It was packed out, however, much unlike the quiet family meal we’d had just the week before, so we took a couple of (very bad, hence their non-inclusion here) photos and headed back to the car.
After such a busy evening of wandering round and doing next to nothing except clicking a shutter button, I concluded that I most certainly deserved a bath, and so lobbed a rather vibrant Lush Bath Bomb in the tub and clambered in. Their Intergalactic bomb was amazing – I couldn’t help myself but dash to grab my camera and take a photo. I leave you here with it’s beguiling blue and pink swirl…
As you may have seen, a while back I jetted off with Izzy and Rhea to visit Luisa in her homeland of Germany! You can, of course, head back to have a nosey at the link above, but I’ve just got round to scanning some film photos we took whilst traversing Berlin and dancing away at the Bierfestivals – just keep on scrolling…
First up we’ve got some photos from Luisa’s hometown of Herzogenaurach, where I made good and proper use of my German-made Praktica MTL50 which I picked up in Leeds for a mere £25.
Before long, however, we’d wound up at the Kerwa beer festival, where I summoned upon the trusty Boots Disposable camera to take some snaps…
We then, as per my older blog post, bundled ourselves onto a coach up to Berlin, where I took the next round of photos. These, again, are on my trusty Praktica.
And so concludes my collection of Film Aus Deutschland (film photos from Germany). As I mentioned before, you can check out the original post here for a more in-depth rundown of what we got up to. Tschüß!
And now I take a break from the usual lifestyle posts to bring you some exciting news – I have just been offered a project working with the Design Council England and Burnley Arts Centre!
This great opportunity comes after some Design Council representatives visited us to engage the whole staff cohort in a design strategy day, where we discussed and presented our opinions on our branding, the organisation’s purpose, and how we communicate our reason for being to the public.
I spent much of the day critiquing and discussing our brand, tone of voice, user experience and admitted lack of foresight when it came to the rebranding exercise of 2014. Subsequently, one of the Design Council staff got in touch and offered to work with us, with myself being singled out to lead the whole design strategy project.
I am currently beavering away at the Arts Centre (hence the lack of interesting posts), with my focus currently being on marketing the new term of youth theatre activities and professional touring productions, however my role will switch as of October 5th to Lead Design Strategist.
This is sure to prove to be an excellent opportunity both for the organisation and for myself, as I have recently begun to realise that I would much rather pursue work in design strategy and user experience in stead of typical visual design roles.
Hello there, avid blog readers, I have returned once more from a quiet stint of busy work to bring you the latest in the mischief I’ve been up to!
Just yesterday evening me and Danni headed off to Blackpool to ride along the infamous illuminations, a trip that some keen-eyed readers amongst yourselves may have noticed that we have actually done before, however one which we enjoyed so much that we thought it warranted us spending our only active day of the year participating in once more.
So, with packets of sweets and some emergency energy-packed flapjacks in tow, we lugged our bikes onto the train and headed off towards the seaside.
Upon our arrival, I spent the first ten minutes or so fighting with my bike, all in an attempt to tame my notoriously hopeless sense of balance. Once I feel sufficiently safe that I would not crash into a family tandem and cause great injury and embarrassment, we joined the masses on the closed-off promenade to see what we could see.
The views were, once again, stunning, and the weather was so courteous as to hold out for the whole time we spent panting our way up and down the sea front. Sooner or later I mustered up the courage to take a hand of the handlebar for more than one second, and so I began to take some selfies as we rode along…
This is just one of many moments in which I genuinely feared for my life.
Sooner or later though (after lots of whining and pining for a GoPro) I think I finally managed to master the art of snapping whilst cycling. No phones were destroyed nor limbs mangled, which was a downright miracle.
We were soon making good progress, passing the Pleasure Beach (our summer stomping ground), the Central Pier and sooner or later that Lancashire landmark, Blackpool Tower.
Several miles and a good few terrible selfies later (from which I shall spare you the horror), we turned around and began to head back and the sun finally set. Now it’s the real atmospheric time, where the LED fairy lights adorning people’s bikes came to life, and the illuminations really came into their own. We even saw a log flume and a couple of dodgems from the Pleasure Beach ride past us!
All too soon, however, it was time to drag our weary bodies back to the train station and await rescue from the cool coastal air (I definitely did not forget my jacket…)
In brief it was another lovely evening, one spent binging on Home Bargains sweets, laughing at old high school memories, and wearing our backsides out on the unforgiving bike saddles. As throughout knackered as I was this morning, I would once again highly recommend anyone from Lancashire to give riding the lights a bash.
You never know, you might just see us again next year!
It’s been a week since I landed back in the UK but with commitments such as working for Burnley Arts Centre and organising some Scholarship Project work, I’ve only just got round to piecing this post together! Blatantly obvious is the location which I visited: Lagos, in the glorious country of Portugal.
This post has a soundtrack, click here before you continue. Ears full of cheesy Portuguese club music? Good. Continue.
Lagos is a beautiful town in the Algarve region of Portugal, boasting a tonne of shops and restaurants in it’s old walled town centre, as well as a marina and a smattering of coves and beaches. Spending two weeks there was bliss, which began with the nightly trips out to eat and browse the local shops. Even on holiday, though, this universally recognisable graphic term didn’t pass me by…
I spent a good amount of time wandering around one of my favourite spots in the town, an old fortress forming one of the main entrances to the walled centre…
After a few days lounging around the pool of the lovely Aqualuz apartments we were staying in, my dad and I got somewhat restless and grabbed our cameras for a snoop along the coast. We first chanced across this abandoned hotel which I’d taken interest in on our last visit a few years ago, but this time we ventured slightly further into the complex…
I have posted the photos from our snooping around the abandoned hotel, the Hotel Golfinho, in another blog post which you can read here! Anyway, after a quick snoop around it’s peeling exterior, we continued heading towards the coves.
The views from the Algarve are breathtaking, and needless to say we spent quite a while wandering up and down the coastline to take enough photos to all but fill my 64GB memory card. Here’s a few of the best…
As we hit the edge of the coastline, where Lagos bends towards an area known as Luz, the most breathtaking part of the coastline was to be found: the grottos. We had already booked a boat tour of the grottos, but took the time to descend an unforgiving number of steps to take a few photos. Here’s a lovely panorama I managed to take on my phone:
As I said, however, most of our time was spent wandering through the centre of the town, where I took the following snaps. Do forgive my expression on the one of me down there. It’s the best of a bad bunch.
Anyway, back to that boat trip that we had booked. To begin, we headed down to Lagos Marina and boarded a big orange boat before heading off out into the Mediterranean Sea, never straying to far from the looming stacks and arches of the coastline, however…
After a little while, and many photos of the coastline (with which I shall burden you not), we dropped anchor and were invited to jump into the freezing ocean (we’d discovered how damn cold it is on a trip to the beach one day). Ellie, fearing not the cold, clambered straight up onto the roof of the boat and threw herself into the water.
Then it was time for part of the trip I’d been waiting for, a chance to have a ride on a modified ‘banana boat’ which had been designed not to tip over. Naturally, of course, I managed to get thrown off it after only a couple of minutes, and then my useless bobbing life-jacked-adorned self had to be unceremoniously rescued from the freezing water. I was not impressed.
The next day, fancying some time away from the sea, my dad and I ventured out once more with our cameras slung over our shoulders. This time we encircled the outer limits of the walled town centre, before dipping in to meander up and down the steep streets. Here’s a couple of photos from our journey…
On our final full day in Portugal, my dad and I once more decided to give the pool a miss and found something else to do: ride Segways around the town! Picking them up from a lovely Portuguese gentleman in the town square, we zipped around the marina before daring to head into the busy commercial areas of the town.
The Segways were so much fun, both me and my dad agreed that we wanted one – and if it weren’t for the UK laws restricting their use, would probably look into getting one. However after this it was time for one last Italian meal and then back to the apartment to pack up, ready for our transfer the next morning.
I loved my time in Lagos, and would very much recommend that anyone thinking of a holiday on the continent doesn’t forget about Portugal. It’s lovely people, old charm, brilliant food and cool sea breeze are not to be missed. If you’d like some recommendations of places to go in Lagos, feel free to get in touch.
You may now end the cheesy Portuguese music (if you bothered to play it). If you want more, try this. Até logo!
