18.09.14 — Burnley
The other day at work I wandered out for lunch and to return a library book, and noticed that the leaves had begun to fall and the sun had begun to reflect off the bright orange trees. I took the opportunity to take a few photos as I headed back to my workplace, Burnley Youth Theatre, which is in a lovely spot in the middle of a park. Busy with web coding and packing at the moment, so I’ll just leave you with the photos…
16.09.14 — Hebden Bridge
Here’s another post I should have written a while back – almost three weeks ago, when Luisa arrived back from Germany!
I met Luisa in Leeds, where we waited for the storage company to deliver her stuff back, and then we headed back to Burnley for an evening of chills (when I was introduced to the Anaconda video…)
I thought I’d show her some of the nicer surrounding areas, and so first we hopped on the bus to Manchester, where we met Emily for some shopping and general gallivanting around the city. As graphic designers, we naturally gravitated to the Apple Store, where this happened…
We spent the rest of the day checking out the coolest places we could think of, such as Affleck’s Palace and the Royal Exchange Theatre, but then Em had to head off home so me and Luisa headed back to Burnley for an evening of snacking and watching Bridesmaids.
The next day we hopped on another bus, this time to the lovely Hebden Bridge! We visited Yorkshire Soap Company, Wood & Wire and of course the sweet shop, where I introduced Luisa to a northern classic – sarsaparilla sweets!
We also wandered along the canal and took time to feed the ducks, where we encountered the most evil-looking pigeon I have ever seen – photo taken by Luisa!
Luisa brought her camera along, so as per usual I stole it and began taking photos. I seriously need to buy myself a decent camera at some point! Here’s one of my favourites, Luisa sat looking lovely on a bench in the park!
Eventually though, I had to go back to work and Luisa had to head off to Leeds to head down south to visit Witney and London, so I’ve been back on the daily grind since! I’ll soon be back in Leeds though and with the graphics gang again – bring on £1 pizza at Belgrave!
PS: Check out Luisa’s blog here. I’ll nag her to update it.
14.09.14 — Blackpool
A few weeks ago now (post delayed due to work commitments) me and Danni grabbed our bikes and headed off on the train to Blackpool for their annual Ride The Lights event!
Our first obstacle came as we tried to work out how to secure our bikes on the train. Being lazy as we are, neither of us had ever had to take a bicycle on a train – and so we stood at the bike rack for a good few minutes trying to work out how prevent our bikes from rolling away and seriously maiming an unsuspecting train passenger.
But we eventually managed it, and so took the opportunity to take some terrible selfies…
Me and Danni on the train, with our make a cameo in the background.
Anyway, we eventually arrived in Blackpool and found our way down to the front. During the event, they close the whole eight mile straight of the front off to cars and other traffic, leaving the main road and the front for us cyclists to power on down.
We wasted no time in getting going – the train times back to Burnley late on were super sporadic so we had to be sure not to miss our planned 10pm train!
Danni snapped the above photo, which is one of my favourites! Unfortunately I am notoriously terrible at cycling, a point proven during the evening as I began to veer perilously to one side with even the smallest distraction, narrowly avoiding collisions on multiple occasions…
Needless to say I had to take the following photo whilst we had to stop for a red light.
My panicked expression is due to the fact that the light was turning green and people had begun to move, and so I was stuck in the centre holding everyone up! If I’m bad whilst in motion on a bike, I’m a thousand times worse at trying to get going from stationary. It takes me forever – throughout the evening I lost Danni multiple times as I was preoccupied trying not to face plant the floor whilst mounting my bike…
Anyway, we soon arrived at the infamous Blackpool Tower, an excuse for another Ollie & Danni selfie. I’m not sure if you can tell, but we decided to wear in our new Thing 1 and Thing 2 t-shirts that I brought back from Florida! True OD style.
There were other things going on during the evening, such as a bunch of artists performing on the promenade, such as a band on the Comedy Carpet.
On we continued, through the iconic Blackpool Illuminations which had been switched on just for the one evening before the official switch-on sometime soon. It began to get dark and Danni managed to break down twice, but we soldiered onwards (and at one point upwards, which really did our legs in…)
We eventually came to the end of the lights, where we had the opportunity to take a break before turning back and cycling back down the entire of the front to the train station where we had begun. But wait – we couldn’t take the time to relax, we were running short on time!
We stopped briefly for a can of Fanta and a bit of a boogie to some classic Dirty Dancing tracks outside one of the promenade hotels, and then again to pick up some food at a (very busy) McDonalds, but we pushed on to get to the train on time!
Two Big Macs, two apple pies, two breakdowns, two Fantas and sixteen miles later, we rolled back up at the train station – in good time for our train, too!
Even though I paid the price for all that exercise, during which I probably did a year’s worth in less than four hours, I would certainly recommend that everyone goes and gives it a go in the future. The weather held out, the flat promenade was easy to navigate, and it was lovely to cycle down below all the lights as the sun went down. It almost reminded me of Florida – I was even humming the tune to Disney’s Electrical Parade at one point!
13.09.14 — Manchester
This Thursday me, my mum and sister hopped over to Salford Quays to meet up with my Auntie & Uncle for a quick meal at the Lowry Centre, and then headed off to Media City UK to form part of the audience for a live recording of Citizen Khan!
In order to gain access we had to queue for a wristband, but to our dismay when we made it to security we were informed that due to the high volume of the cast’s family and friends who had been able to book priority tickets, they had run out of wristbands for the evening’s show. We were, however, handed bingo-style numbered tickets instead and told to hang around in the hope that some priority ticket holders wouldn’t show and we would be able to sneak in.
We milled around outside the studio and I, being my usual inquisitive self, wandered off and found a map of the studio building and found my way to another of the sound stages. It was the largest there, and I had a nosey in – but it was dark and so I wandered back to the news that we could go in!
We eventually got our seats right at the back left of the studio, but they were seats nonetheless and so we settled down and the show began!
Adil Ray and the rest of the cast were brilliant (he stopped by to tweet me and Ellie after the show!) and we laughed pretty much non-stop for the three or so hours of filming.
I was enthralled by watching how the setup worked and functioned, and also spent a lot of my time staring up at the jungle of trussing and lighting which was suspended from the studio roof.
In case you didn’t know, from a young age I have been obsessed and intrigued by lighting and it’s use in films, live productions and general interior designs. I have been amassing a personal collection of stage lighting for years, and my job at Burnley Youth Theatre has also allowed me to dabble in technical theatre work over the years – so as you can imagine, being on a studio set was like heaven for me!
I am once again inundated with work this weekend, and so will probably not get the chance to leave you guys with another post. I shall do my best to get one out early next week – I have a list as long as my arm of things to report back on, including an awesome cycling trip to Blackpool with Danni – argh!
Update: You can view me and Danni’s cycling action here. Promise not to laugh.
08.09.14 — Alton
Afyer a busy three days of Blaze Festival, today me and my mum took off down to Alton Towers for a day of thrills and chills! It turned out to be a beautiful day to go – both because of the weather and the total lack of queue lines!
The day started off with the planned rush to The Smiler – as I queued up for ages with the graphics crew a while back (remember this?) only to have the ride break down on us. This time I was adamant that I’d get on it – and I did! Thrice!
I accomplished this by first rushing straight there and catching the ride when it’s queue time stood at a relatively short 30 minutes, and then skipped the whole queue by jumping in the single riders line! I practically walked on to the ride twice, then came back later to do the same one last time.
After my mum had opted not to ride The Smiler, I somehow talked her on to Oblivion. For those who don’t know, Oblivion consists of a 90º vertical 180ft drop into a dark smoking hole in the ground. My mum yelled at me for taking her on for the duration of the ride, but then was the one to suggest that we hop back on again!
We then managed to score a ride on Rita, Thirteen and then headed over via Skyride to Forbidden Valley for some time on Air and Nemesis!
We did really well with Nemesis and Air, managing to get two rides on each with only about ten minutes queue for each ride! My mum became bolshie and announced that she thought Nemesis was ‘tame’. Okay.
Although I was thankful for the lack of queues for rides such as Nemesis, I did feel a pang of pain when I saw the abandoned sections of queue pen which used to be full to brimming with people excited to get just one ride. It made me speculate as to how long The Smiler is going to need such endless twists and turns of queue line…
I also took the opportunity to score my first rides on Ripsaw and Nemesis: Sub Terra. Ripsaw was as stomach-churning and wild as it looks, although not as wet as it first appeared (quite fortunately I’d say).
But Nemesis: Sub Terra was a totally different beast.
A Google search before I rode made me assume it was a tame 20ft tall drop tower, but kudos to the Alton Towers staff for making it something else completely! After being yelled at and bossed around by the staff posed as top-secret dig site workers, we ended up in a room with a forbidden ‘egg’. Predictably, the egg hatched and all hell broke loose – and then the ride and the guests really got wild. The restraints lifted automatically, alarms began to sound, strobes flashed and we were yelled at to leave as quickly as possible!
In a moment of blind panic, unsure as to weather it was part of the act or we were genuinely been made to evacuate the ride, the whole group of riders began to scream and run out of the room towards an ‘elevator’ back to ground level. After a bumpy ride back to the surface, we were ushered screaming into a decontamination chamber. I ran through it, arms flailing, being scared to death as a gas-mask-clad staff member jumped from a wall.
After this I finally found daylight and left the ride. Definitely something to experience!
Anyway, back on with the rest of our day. My mum, still bitter about the wetness of the water rides in Florida, decided she didn’t want anything to do with The Flume or River Rapids, so we gave those a miss. We did, however, get a ride on Duel and The Runaway Mine Train before heading over to Sonic Spinball.
I remember this ride from it’s days as Spinball Whizzer, but I forgot how wild it could really be! Me and my mum loved it, managing to walk on twice!
The highlight of the day, though, was none of the above. My mum convinced me that we should go on the ‘swings’ ride, which turned out to be a toadstool-themed attraction in the kid’s section behind the Towers themselves.
Although seemingly empty and tame, it was actually quite enjoyable! I do think my mum was a little more excited by it than me though. I’ll let this picture do all the talking…
But after another day of travelling and outings, I am back in my beautiful bed again. I am particularly proud of some purchases I made in ‘Buy The Smiler’, The Smiler’s gift shop…
I’m going to go and have another early(ish) night again, as I am in the office tomorrow to work some more on the new Burnley Youth Theatre/Burnley Arts Centre website. Such fun!