I made it. I finally made it! I reached the top.
Scafell Pike 2021
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Tag Archives: Day out
Bluebells
As the weather is beautiful right now and we are at the height of the bluebell season I decided that I would grab the camera and head on out to somewhere and see what I could do.
Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve taken any proper photos so this was going to be a whole new thing for me again. Learning how to use my camera properly was the object of the game, so I decided that I would take all photos on manual. This would help me get to know my camera again.
Location of choice was Dene Country Park just on the outskirts of Shipbourne. I arrived there just after 11am and began my journey wandering through the woodland. For the first 15 minutes of my walk I only saw the odd Bluebell. I thought I had missed them. A little while later I was greeted by a sea of purple. It was beautiful.
Sadly the camera can never do justice to Bluebells, but I tried my best. Tell me what you think.
Alton Towers
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.
A Night at the Hilton
Up at 4am, working 10 hours, 90-minute drive to Gatwick, and then 10 hours of drinking.
Well that was my day in the simplest form. Obviously there was much more to it. There was an award ceremony, photos, silly antics, meet and greets, laughs, eye candy, and an all round drunken time.
As our company lost their contract it will be our last ever winter ball sadly, however a cracking good time was had.
I left work at 4pm ran to Asda and grabbed some vodka and then made my way to the Hilton. I arrived just before 6 and got straight into the shower. Shortly before 7 the friend I invited turned up. Drinks in hand we headed into the crowds and mingled.
Dinner and celebrations started at 7.30. After the awards the live music started, and the drinking began.
At about 10pm a photo booth was set up where people could dress up and take photos. I had to get in on it this year. We grabbed a few friends to come and join us to have a laugh. I even grabbed someone from upper management!
C.E.R.N.
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.
So this was the plane I was about to get on
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Ryans 10!
My son is now 10 years old! His birthday was on the 14th, but I had to see him the weekend before. This was a good thing as I found something that Ryan would enjoy so much.
Ryan is heavily into beatboxing. He watches hours upon hours of videos on youtube of various artists performing their talent. What better gift could I get him than to take him to the Championships?
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Day at the beach
It’s summer and its nice and hot. What is there better to do than to go to the beach? Thats exactly what we did. We packed our stuff and headed down to Camber Sands.
Unfortunately at the time of going to the beach Operation Stack was on which closed the majority of the M20 and caused chaos with the traffic in the local areas. We decided to go through Maidstone and down the A229 and then onto the A21 to Hastings heading to Camber from the West. It took a little longer to get there, but it was much more desirable taking that route than being stuck in hour upon hours of traffic!
We arrived just after 2pm at which time the parking becomes half price, so thats a bonus! We parked up and unpacked the car. I lathered up the kids with sunscreen and headed up the huge sand dunes over to the beach. We spent the next couple of hours playing about in the ocean.
We had loads of fun!
The Eden Project
Last year when I had the kids with me we visited the Eden Project in Cornwall. At the time I didn’t realise but I bought annual passes. I don’t think it cost that much more than a regular ticket to be perfectly honest, so thats why I probably didn’t notice.
Anyway, we decided to visit again this year. We had a good time down there and as hey had the dinosaur expedition on again, we definitely had to go and visit. Below are a few photos we took while there.
Legoland
It’s that time of year again when I get to have a couple of weeks with the kids, and I intend to make the most of it. I have decided to buy them annual passes for merlin attractions which will get us into all the best theme parks around the UK.
We started our trip with Legoland, and we had the weather on our side which was a major bonus! As anyone with any form of sense should know if you visit a theme park then you better have the extra money to pay for fast track (in the case of Legoland its known as a Qbot).
I have included the videos and photos I took while we were there. Check them out below.
Fathers Day
It’s already been a while since I last saw my two, so Fathers Day was just the opportunity to make sure I had the time off of work and go spend time with the kids.
I set off relatively early from home and made my way down to Winchester to pick the kids up for the day and take them out for some quality father, son, and daughter time.
