Showing posts with label fairgrounds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fairgrounds. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 May 2024

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 18th May 2024

May's photo an hour took place on Saturday 18th. It was a lovely sunny day and also the other half's birthday on the 19th so we headed to a local steam rally to have a look round. 


Here's what the day looked like...




14 lovely others joined in:

Valerie joined in on Instagram
Josie joined in on Instagram
Ellie joined in on Instagram
Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram
Christine from Christine Lucas joined in on Instagram
Jennifer from Pastry and Purls joined in on Instagram
Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram
Lucy joined in on Instagram Stories
Jane joined in on Instagram Stories
Rebecca joined in on Instagram Stories
Hannah joined in on Instagram Stories
Denise joined in on Instagram Stories
Jennifer joined in on Instagram Stories
Danielle from Underland to Wonderland joined in on Instagram Stories
And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-) 



June's photo an hour date is Saturday 22nd - see you there!
 
 

Wednesday, 19 October 2022

Summer at the Duckpond

So, how is it October already!? Where has this year gone? 

We had quite a nice summer, pretty good weather and we managed to get out and about a fair few times plus do our annual road trip to Scotland and back. 

Here's a selection of what's been happening over the last three months:


  • We spent lots of time at one of our local outdoor swimming pools, Greenbank Pool in Street. We cancelled the Small Person's swimming lessons (doing them indoors was too high risk) so instead I attempted to teach her myself. Each time we went to the pool, we were able to spend several hours there, mixing swimming and playing in the kids pool with some snacks and a cuppa for me at the poolside. I wouldn't say she was able to swim perfectly but by the end of the summer, she could do breast stroke under the water, glide and do doggy paddle (and a bit of breast stroke) on top of the water so I reckon that's a win. We'll pick it up again next year when the pool opens for the season in May. 



  • We had a great road trip to Scotland, visiting the Helensburgh area in the first week and staying in Cramond, Edinburgh in the second week. We took my Mum and brother with us this year and hired a van so we could all fit in. We didn't see any shows at the Fringe (again, we didn't want to take the risk) but we did visit Edinburgh city centre to experience the atmosphere and watch some of the street performers. 





  • We went to visit Carters Steam Fair on their Farewell Tour a few times in Bath and also once in Basingstoke. It's sad they're no longer going to tour but also completely understandable as to why they've made that decision. We had great fun working for them and visiting them on lots of occassions so we'll keep lots of happy memories. 



  • Andrew took his 1952 Scammell lorry to the Great Dorset Steam Fair (for the first time since 2019). We camped in our usual place (behind the Freak Show) and when everyone had left at the end of the fair, Lily was able to go onto the stage and pretend to put on a performance. 



  • We went up to the north of Scotland at the beginning of September, staying near Lossiemouth. It was a holiday originally booked by my Dad for 2021 but I had to postpone it when he had his stroke. We were finally able to go this year and spent lots of time on the beach when we had sunny weather!




  • Carnivals are back this year, after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021. Lots of carnival clubs are smaller; it's been a hard few years for obvious reasons but people still seem to be enjoying it and it's fun to be back. The carnival club I'm in are taking part as a walking group, re-doing our Alice in Wonderland theme from a few years ago. My costume is the White Queen and Lily is able to take part with us on some of the nights, wearing an Alice costume. The big carnivals start on 5th November at Bridgwater and run through to 19th November finishing at Glastonbury (which is also a 'photo an hour' day!). I'm going to try and post on Instagram Stories over the season. 



  • Photo an Hour over the summer took place on 23rd July (round-up here), 20th August (round-up here) and 17th September (round-up here). October's photo an hour is this Saturday, the 22nd!

  • We've all had our jabs for the winter - COVID boosters and flu jabs (being eligible as 'carers' and 'household contact of immunosuppressed'). We also made the decision to get Lily her chicken pox vaccine - she still hadn't had chicken pox yet and we just thought what's the point?, the older she gets, the more horrible it'll be. And she wanted it as well so we got her booked in. 

  • We watched 'The Sparks Brothers' on Netflix which was utterly wonderful. I tweeted about it the next day and had a like and retweet from its director, Edgar Wright! It's been taken off Netflix now unfortunately but I think you can still find it on other platforms. 


What have you been up to?


 

Tuesday, 23 August 2022

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 20th August 2022

August's photo an hour day fell on Saturday 20th. The morning was spent doing odd jobs around the house but for the afternoon, we went out to Carters Steam Fair in Bath! 


Here's what the day looked like...





15 lovely others joined in:

Valerie joined in on Instagram
Naomi joined in on Instagram
Sarah joined in on Instagram
Jane joined in on Instagram Stories
Jennifer joined in on Instagram Stories
Lucy joined in on Instagram Stories
Denise joined in on Instagram Stories
Alex joined in on Instagram Stories
Rebecca joined in on Instagram Stories
Amy joined in on Instagram Stories
Emma joined in on Instagram Stories
Sarah joined in on Instagram Stories
Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram
Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram
Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram
And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-) 



September's photo an hour date is Saturday 17th - see you there!
 
 

Sunday, 1 August 2021

July at the Duckpond

Ooh look I've kept up a monthly post for a second month at least. Bit of a hot month wasn't it? We managed to fit in 3 swims, a bit of gardening, some sewing and excitingly, our first actual show since before COVID. 


  • We had an excellent day out to Portishead and Clevedon, visiting the outdoor pool (which is beautiful and you can even smell the sea when you're swimming), feeding the ducks, finding playgrounds and Lily even dipped her feet into Clevedon Marine Lake.



  • Good books I've read - The Promise by Lucy Diamond and I also reread One Sweet Moment by Maggie Craig (it's set in Edinburgh - I first read it years ago before I started going there and it mentions lots of street names and places so I wanted to reread it now I know where it's referring to).

  • We had a day trip to Barry Island to visit the funfair. We went there in May on the bank holiday Monday and at the time the funfair was far too busy so we promised Lily we'd return when it was less busy. We went on a Thursday and she pretty much had all the rides to herself! She loved it, obviously. 



  • Our last show before COVID was Mark Thomas at Frome's Merlin Theatre. Our first show since then was Russell Howard at Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol. We originally had tickets to see him doing a work in progress show at Edinburgh Fringe back in August 2019 but he had to cancel that show. Then we spotted he was doing a gig in Bristol during July 2020 so booked that instead. Obviously it was postponed to 2021. It should have been at the Bristol Hippdrome but they moved it to the outdoors Ashton Gate Stadium so everyone could be sat distanced. It felt a bit weird but was still a really good show. We probably overcompensated because we kept our masks on during the performance anyway even though it was outdoors. We seem to have come through it COVID-free though so that's good. 


  • I had my second vaccination on 10th July (exactly 8 weeks after my first) so I'm now double-Pfizer-jabbed! We're still doing everything we were doing before though - avoiding indoor spaces, wearing masks, etc - as we all know the vaccinations aren't failsafe against infections or mild disease. 


  • We visited White Row Farm fish and chip shop for mother-in-law's birthday meal. If you're ever heading north or south on the A36 near Frome, White Row Farm shop is an excellent place to stop. Their chip shop is really tasty, they have lots of outdoor seating, 2 playgrounds and farm animals to look at. 


  • We had the results from Lily's LAMDA exam and she passed! Her teacher said all the students passed with either a Merit or a Distinction although we don't know Lily's exact score yet.

  • We're looking forward to our August holiday and have even booked 3 shows to see at the Fringe! 2 of them are outdoors shows (1 for us, 1 for Lily) and 1 indoors in a very well-ventilated venue. We "treated" ourselves to a load of FFP3 masks so we'll wear them indoors anyway. 

  • We're looking forward to Series 3 of Sex Education starting in September and also the new series of Ghosts starting in August. I was also excited to spot they're making a second series of Good Omens!

  • Photo an Hour day was on Saturday 17th July - the round-up is here. August's photo an hour day is Saturday 21st - feel free to take part if you like :-)

  • I downloaded the 1 Second Everyday app to use after seeing Denise using it on Instagram. I thought I'd give it a go and see how interesting it it (or more accurately, my life is!). I'll put a summary on Instagram at the end of the month. 

  • We're looking forward to Carters Steam Fair visiting Bath during August. The last time we were there on the fair was back in October 2019 when me and Andrew were working for them for a day. We haven't told Lily they're coming yet so it'll be a surprise. 

  • And we discovered an excellent splash pad play area in Chippenham which was apparently the "best thing EVER!" according to Lily :-) 


How was your July?
 

Sunday, 28 March 2021

A Photo Every Hour - 2019

Next up in my photo an hour round up, 2019 - the last "normal" year! 


19th January 2019 - Lily had a friend's birthday party to attend north of Bristol so we turned it into a day trip, starting with a Toby Carvery breakfast and taking in the new 'Hey Duggee' movie at the cinema. After the party we did a bit of shopping for Lily's birthday party the following week. 



16th February 2019 - We did some tidying and sorting then went out for a drive to do some geocaching and ended up at a soft play centre for dinner. 



23rd March 2019 - Another day of tidying and sorting out, with a purpose as the next day we were doing a stall at a local baby & children's table top sale. 



27th April 2019 - A day of travelling almost 300 miles home from our Easter holiday break in Anglesey. We stopped off on the way for dinner and a play at Gloucester Servives on the M5 of course. :-) 



19th May 2019 - A Sunday this time and also Andrew's birthday. In the morning I helped at a local baby & children's sale and in the evening, we had birthday pizza before watching a show at the Bath Festival. 



15th June 2019 - Another baby & children's sale, this time the local NCT one where I was volunteering and manning stalls. After the sale me, Lily, my dad and brother headed to the hospital where my mum was (this was the month she was diagnosed with cancer) and then came back to our house for dinner cooked by Andrew. 


20th July 2019 - Was our carnival club's annual fundraising fun day. Andrew took the lorry along as an exhibit, I made lots of cakes and also manned some of the stalls. Lily spent all our money on the stalls winning sweets :-)



24th August 2019 - This day fell on the weekend of Great Dorset Steam Fair and it was a lovely sunny warm day. In the morning me and Lily did our shift in the pay box of a friend's vintage arcade and in the afternoon I did a shift volunteering on the trailer rides around the ring. The evening was spent at the fairground whilst Lily's favourite area of the fair was the freak show (performed by the Circus of Horrors) which was not surprising as we camp directly behind their show and she'd seen all the performers every day. 



21st September 2019 - We went away for the weekend to help run the vintage arcade at Carter's Steam Fair in West Wycombe. It was a lovely autumn day driving there and a mild evening too with fab fireworks to finish. 



12th October 2019 - A day of tidying, cake baking and playing. In the evening we watched a live stream from one of the local carnivals taking place that day. 



16th November 2019 - The last time I performed on a carnival float! (as the processions were cancelled last year for obvious reasons). The morning was spent sorting out my costume and bits from the previous night's procession and then getting ready for that evening's one. 



21st December 2019 - It was our carnival club's Christmas party that day. We had a bit of shopping to do at lunchtime and then I made the cake that'd been requested by a couple of people in the club - a battenberg cake! 



Just one more year - 2020 - to go and then the first few months of 2021 :-) 

 


Thursday, 2 November 2017

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 26th August

August's photo an hour day fell on the Saturday of the Bank Holiday weekend - we were camping at our usual August steam rally, the Great Dorset Steam Fair.


Here's what the day looked like...

8am - Starting the day with 'Something Special' (whilst we get breakfast organised).


9am - Caravan brekkie.


10am - Remnants of breakfast (beans and toast were a hit).


11am - View from our caravan window (the stripey tent is the back of the Circus of Horrors freak show - we camp in amongst the freaks! Also - their description of themselves, not mine :-) )


12pm - Taking a look round the engines and fairground.


1pm - It was hot!


2pm - Managed to find some dairy-free cake which I snaffled while she was sleeping.


3pm - Trying to find some shade.


4pm - Round the ring in Andrew's lorry, waving and shouting "arro" to all the spectators.


5pm - Off for a wander.


6pm - Waiting for the food to be cooked!


7pm - Dinnertime mess.


8pm - Evening lights.


9pm - Up late for a spin on the gallopers...



It was my turn to do the round up that month and we had 16 lovely people joining in:

Amy from Fluffy Owl's Adventures joined in on Instagram
Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram
Jane from Is That You Darling joined in on Instagram
Janet from Someone, Somewhere joined in on Instagram and on her blog
Jennifer from Adventures in Pop Culture joined in on Instagram
Louise from Ramblings of a Roachling joined in on Instagram and on her blog
Lucy joined in on Instagram
Naomi from What Naomi Did Next joined in on Instagram
Rebecca from Writing, Fatshion, Me joined in on Instagram
Rebecca from Halfway Home joined in on Instagram
Ruth joined in on Instagram
Sarah from Sarah Rooftops joined in on Instagram
Saskia joined in on Instagram
Shazza from Sunshine and Celandines joined in on Instagram and on her blog
Susie from Secondhand Susie joined in on Instagram and on her blog
And of course, myself here on this post, plus on Instagram and Twitter :-)

Let me know if you took part and I've missed you from the list - it was easy enough to check Instagram and blogs to see who did photo an hour that month, but a lot more difficult to go back two months on Twitter!


September's photo an hour date was Saturday 23rd and you can click here to find out all about it...


Also, check out what I was up to in...
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...