So, not so long ago it was my daughter’s 18th birthday. As promised to her last year I took her to Alton Towers for two days with the Gold Fast Track for both days.
I picked her up on the Saturday and we headed up to the hotel. When we arrived, I found out I made a huge mistake! I booked a double room and not a twin. Oh shit! I tried everything I could to get us changed, but I was told they had no spare rooms. It is what it is.
We unpacked and headed to the restaurant for dinner. You can usually tell how good a places food is by how good their burgers are, and that’s what I had. Burger and chips. It wasn’t too bad! Headed back to the room and chilled for the evening watching some TV.
Next morning arrives and I had barely any sleep. The room was horrendously hot. I set the air-con to the lowest temperature, no window to open, because why would you put an opening window in the room. It felt like we were in the middle of a heatwave in there!
Funnily enough when I complained about the room being baking hot, they suddenly found a vacant room to switch us into. We each had our own beds and a working air-con with windows that actually opened! We could get a decent nights sleep!
We got ready and headed to the theme park. Below is a mix of both days events.
Yesterday was amazing. First time in a little while I’ve actually been out on my bike with no worries or issues. 179 miles in total!
Yesterday was the day that I decided that I need to get out and down to Broadoak Bakery. They do the most amazing Scotch Eggs and Sausage Rolls. Well worth going if you’re ever nearby, or not!
I picked up my munch and then headed up towards Tonbridge to grab me a Starbucks. As I pull up, I see in the distance a familiar face. In fact two familiar faces! My sister had gone out with her friend on their bikes, and a chap that I met while doing my day job. I said a quick hello to my sister and sat down to chat with the matey I met previously. He rides a gorgeous Harley Davidson Sportster S. I still need to figure this guys name out!
After sitting and chatting for a bit, I left everyone and headed over to Ashdown Forest. Annoyingly not really anywhere to park unless you want to pay! Wasn’t too keen on that if I’m honest, however I did manage to find myself a little lay-by. Parked up and just sat on the hillside overlooking the forest. Relishing in the sun. I sat probably around an hour. Taking it all in. Of course though, I had to grab a few photos.
It’s one of a very few dry sunny days at the moment. So it’s time I went out on the bike for a little jolly!
Part of the route I was taking was to explore the roads I had not been on before. To try find a good road to ride. 140 miles and I found myself some nice views, but also some trouble!
I headed from mine down the A274 then working my way over to the A22. As I went along the A265 I noticed something strange. My bike wasnt handling as good as she normally does. I pull over and what do I discover? A puncture! No!!
When flights are cheap, the world is your destination!
Both me and my son jumped at the chance to have a day trip over to Venice, Italy. £37.50 each return from Stanstead! Hell of a bargain, who could say no to that?
The day started at 7am. We headed up to Harlow. Had a breakfast, got some Euros and parked up at the train station. Jumped on the train and headed to Stanstead.
Of course after checking into the airport and going through all the security we headed to the nearest pub! Two pints later we nearly missed our flight, but thankfully made it just in time!
My last post on my bucket list was back in 2020 with hopes and dreams that I would get some of the items ticked off of my list. Sadly due to the COVID-19 disaster everything had to be put on hold.
Even though we have had a pandemic and we are pretty much in a recession with prices sky rocketing through the roof for everything at the moment, I have managed to get a couple things ticked off of my list.
Reach the summit of Scafell Pike. I managed to get this done on the 4th June 2021 with my sister. View the full story here.
I got my tongue pierced again. This is officially the 4th time it has now been pierced. View the full story here.
I stopped smoking in March 2020. I took the pandemic as the perfect sign to quit. I did however move onto a vape. I have now also finally as of 1st November 2022 quit vaping. I am officially nicotine free.
The last 18 months in terms of goals have been quite good for me. Ticking 5 things off of my list is a good amount.
Sadly in terms of health, things haven’t been so good. As of August 2021 I had a lung infection which ended up in 5 months off work. I also caught COVID-19 in February 2022, which appears to have given me permanent breathing issues. I have been to the hospital and had a multitude of tests done and everything is coming back fine. I’ve had a lung function test, angiogram, bone density tests, x-rays, cardiogram, echocardiogram, blood tests, various asthma inhaler testing and everything is coming back as fine. The doctors are now investigating the possibility of long-COVID.
Currently I am back at work, but very much on light duties. I am not allowed out on the road to perform inspections. I’m not allowed to drive a vehicle. I am to either work from the office or work from home. For the most part I have worked from home but this has proven to have other side effects. I have missed human contact and being around others, which has affected my general day to day mood. I have agreed with my manager that I now go into the office a couple times a week and work and or catch up with the other inspectors. I think once I am able to start interacting with others my mood will improve.
This year I am hoping to tick a few more things off my list. I am not sure, but there will be some travel around the UK which will give me the perfect opportunity to go visit some castles and possibly some camping. Everything is very much money dependant at the moment with the issues with the economy, so we shall see!
Ever since I travelled to Wales in back in February 2015, I have been wanting to go again, but take the kids. Although I went back in July 2015 to do the three peaks challenge, I didn’t really get the opportunity to explore or really enjoy what I was seeing while I was there.
Fast forward to 2018 and I thought it was about time I took the kids around Wales to explore and enjoy what nature offers. August 2018 arrives and I have the kids with me for the summer holidays while they’re off of school.
We stayed in a hotel near Northop Hall for 6 nights, which isn’t too far from Chester and Liverpool. The majority of the holiday was to be spent around Snowdonia National Park which meant a little travelling, but not too much.
We set off from the hotel at around 7am and stopped in Conwy for breakfast at Premier Inn. £9.50 for all 3 of us to have a full English. After breakfast we stopped at Tesco to grab something for later on in the day and to make sure we carried plenty of water with us.
At around 11am we set off down to the Pen-y-Pass car park at the foot of Snowdon arriving shortly after at around 12pm. Upon arrival we found the car park completely full and no spaces available. I went back to Llanberis to check out their park and ride service and found it half way between the two. Upon parking I realised that I didn’t bring any change with me to pay. I found a layby closer to Pen-y-Pass and called for a taxi up to where we were originally going to park.
We finally got all set up and ready to start the trail at around 1pm. I decided to go The Miner’s Tack as that’s the way I took when I did the three peak challenge and it’s a nice walk and there is plenty to see along the way.
The walk started off nice and sunny and as we weren’t just walking to the top we were also exploring this was great. We stopped off at an old building at the end of Llyn Llydaw to have some lunch and have a little play. We left here around 4.30ish and continued on our journey. About another hour passed as we continued up the mountain and the weather took a crappy direction. It started to get foggy and it started to rain. Now this isn’t normal rain, it was extremely fine rain. The type that makes you wet throughout. Yeah ok, not too bad we could deal with that. At this point we were at Glaslyn and though, sod it, we’re almost there so might as well carry on.
About 45 minutes later walking up from Glaslyn the wind decided it wanted to chime in as well. So, there we were walking up the side of this mountain with fog, very fine rain and the occasional gust. We finally managed to reach the summit, thick fog as in can’t see more than about 50m in front of you thick fog, fine rain and gusty wind. Needless to say we raced to the top to touch the sun dial thing got our photos then went down to the visitor centre hoping it was open so we could catch the train down.
Needless to say the damn thing was closed. Everyone had gone and we were all up there by ourselves! Ok, well we stopped outside under a shelter near the entrance and had some refreshments. A couple chocolate bars and drinks. After about 30 minutes of resting we decided that we would make our way down and follow the Llanberis path. That path was covered in sharp slate everywhere you were stepping and was unavoidable, but was safer for the kids. Once we got down into the valley near Llyn Du’r Arddu the rain had stopped, there were no more gusts and the fog had gone. The end of the day was beginning to look a lot brighter. Finally reaching Llanberis at around 9pm that evening. Exhausted and tired, but happy we had all summitted Snowdon we walked around to The Royal Victoria Hotel and asked them if they could call a taxi for us to get back to my car. 25 minutes later, we were in the car changing into warm dry clothes and were heading back to the hotel to sleep.
The way I have described it sounds a lot more dangerous than it really was. I was with the kids at all times and made sure they were safe. We all had a source of communication and I had shown them the way we were going so we were all prepared for any eventuality.
It’s now half term and the kids have some time off of school, so they were coming down to mine for just over a week, but first I thought it be good to take Ryan to Alton Towers for the weekend as now he is tall enough to go on all of the rides.
I finished work on the Friday at 6am and moseyed on home and slept until 4pm at which time I got up got showered and packed my things. It’s now 6pm and I’m driving to go and get the boy from his mums. I arrive just after 8pm and was greeted with massive hugs and kisses from both of the kids. I spend about 45 minutes there before heading up the A34 to our destination. 4 long hours later we arrive in Stoke at our hotel. Turned out to be the wrong hotel – I had put the post code for another hotel I was looking at in the Sat Nav. No big deal as the actual hotel was only 5 miles in the direction we just come from.
We arrived at the proper hotel just after midnight. Checked in and headed to our room. I go in and there are two single beds. I stand there scratching my head thinking “I’m pretty sure I booked a family room”. We went back down stairs to reception and they changed our room to a double as they didn’t have any more family rooms left. It means sharing the bed with Ryan, but that wasn’t a problem. He snores just as much as I do!
We were up at 7.30am the next morning and headed off to the nearest Premier Inn hotel as they do some cracking breakfasts. We filled up on grub and then headed off to Alton Towers arriving just after 10.30. We entered the park after the 15 minute walk from the car park and headed straight to our first ride.
Visiting C.E.R.N has been one of the things I have been wanting to do for quite some time. I found out recently that they have tours of their facility and ordinary members of the public can request to join them.
After finding out they did tours I naturally got excited. It took me a couple of weeks to find a slot between seeing the kids, work and an availability in the tours. The next challenge was the price of the flight. I thought it was going to be expensive as hell to get a flight over to Geneva, Switzerland. Turns out it wasn’t! Using a website a friend from works introduced me to called Sky Scanner I was able to book a return flight for £42! It makes you wonder how it’s even possible!
I’ve never been on an aeroplane before, so the trip over to Geneva was going to be a completely new experience for me. I was so excited but so scared at the same time. I didn’t know what to expect.
