Year 2 Begins

10.10.14 — Leeds

Once again I have left a ludicrously large gap between one post and another, and once again I offer my apologies. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of uni work, socialising, churros and research which have left me with little time to even consider writing a blog post – but tonight I have found a spare five minutes.

As you may have guessed from the introduction and title, I am back in mighty Leeds! I’ve been here for three weeks now, and so much has happened in that time that I will try to bring you up to speed.

First up, I’m now all settled in my new house in the middle of Hyde Park, a short fifteen minute walk from uni and an even shorter two minute walk from the constant snack offers at the Co-Op Food…

I would like to point out that the image above is not my house or street, but a selection of the visual delights on show in the densest student population in Leeds. Here’s my walk to uni…

A not-so-picturesque trek uphill to university

Over freshers I spent a lot of time meeting back up with all the guys from graphics and exploring Leeds once more. Naturally we landed ourselves at Belgrave Music Hall for a Layne’s Espresso Brunch, where I treated myself to a delicious pork dish.

After which me and Beth headed down into town and had a nosey around. I found a Maplin shop (memories of my days in the garden tinkering with electronics) and we also found something much more important – a churrería in the middle of the city centre. Naturally we made a beeline for it and got ourselves some delicious fresh churro goodness.

We also stumbled upon Whitelocks, a pub that we’d seen advertised in Belgrave but never been able to find. It was tucked into a tiny alley just off the high street!

It looks like a lovely little spot, and we made a pact to regroup and visit it sometime for some cider and some good pub food. I also went for a stroll down to the Royal Armouries and the canal and took a few photos along the way…

Another day we all headed for Weatherspoons and had a huge catch up over some cocktail pitchers. Rhea had four!

But all good things must come to an end, and we have had to get back into the School Of Design and do some work! But wait – they’ve just finished doing up our building, and now it’s super fancy. From an Apple-esque glass entrance to a hip refitting of our common room, we’re all loving the new decor.

Our common room of picnic tables, sofas and plants

My favourite addition by far is the storage shed in the grass studio, which we watched being erected, and which now stands proud in the corner holding up a new fancy TV. I took the opportunity to wander in and have a look around, and Luisa snapped this photo of me…

Jo also spouted a glorious moustache during one of our Mac Studio sessions…

They’ve been working us ragged also – setting us off on a research project to investigate ‘trends’. I was landed with “Generation Jones”, and so locked myself in my room for about a week, sprouting a beard and scouring the web and the library for information…

At some point we also grouped up and went down to Leeds Light Night, which was super cool – I didn’t get too many photos, but I did manage to snap a few of the Zombies in Trinity Kitchen, who managed to make a total mess…

And with that I think I can conclude. I will try to keep on top of posting a bit more, but as the briefs come rolling in I can’t promise much! I will leave you now with this charming message I found on the wall somewhere…

Autumn Arrives in Burnley

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…

Luisa Visits Burnley

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.

Ride The Lights

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, out bikes make a cameo in the background

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.

Me and Danni pepare to cycle down the front

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!

Citizen Khan

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.