A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 17th May 2025

May's photo an hour date was Saturday 17th. I had a day of peace and quiet (spring cleaning!) as Andrew and Lily headed out to Castle Combe Steam Rally, coming back home in the evening to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. 

Here's what the day looked like...

10 lovely others joined in:

Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram

Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram

Lucy joined in on Instagram Stories

Janet joined in on Instagram Stories

Jane joined in on Instagram Stories

Denise joined in on Instagram Stories

Amy joined in on Instagram Stories

Nicky joined in on Instagram Stories

Danielle from Underland to Wonderland joined in on Instagram Stories

Jennifer from Pastry and Purls joined in on Instagram Stories

And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-) 

June's photo an hour date is Saturday 21st - see you there!

 

 

A Year Without Theatre - My 'Shows I've Seen' Project

So you might have spotted from the photo an hour pictures from last year, I spent a good deal of time sorting, tidying and cleaning. One thing I sorted out was all my theatre programmes, tickets, brochures, leaflets and stuff. 

One of my favourite shows, Kneehigh Theatre's 'Midnight's Pumpkin' at Battersea Arts Centre in December 2012

My mum started taking me to theatre shows when I was quite young. One of the earliest shows I remember was 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at Devizes Wharf Theatre, sitting up high near the top of the tiered seating. In reality it probably wasn't that far up, I was probably just quite small! Another show was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Merlin Theatre in Frome. It seemed like we used to go to the Merlin quite often. If I came home from school and my mum told me to choose some nice clothes, then I knew we were more than likely going out to see a show. 

We used to go to the local panto each year in Bath too at the Theatre Royal and I loved the plushness of the auditorium. I think theatres have a certain smell - the greasepaint maybe or perhaps it's just the sweat of the crowd and performers - whatever it is, it's fairly magical. I love the fact that what you're seeing is live right there in front of you, no second takes or anything. And I love the fact you can see the same show more than once and it can be different each time or you notice little extra bits in the set, movement or script. If I love a show, I try and see it more than once - the shows that take the record for 'most times seen' are Kneehigh's 'Tristan and Yseult' at 14 times (over 14 years) and the musical, 'Rent' at 17 times (over 15 years). 

I know my mum started taking me to the theatre when I was quite young because around 1994/1995 (about 12/13 years old) I started keeping a list of the shows I'd seen and there were some (like 'Earnest' and 'Dream') that I couldn't remember the exact dates for. At first my list was simply keeping all my theatre tickets in a box and writing things on paper but eventually it morphed into a spreadsheet which I still keep updated now. My definition of "show" is theatre, stand up comedy or music gig and my spreadsheet currently tallies 567 times I've been to one. It's probably slightly higher though as there's some late 80's/early 90's shows I don't remember. 

I should have kept a list of all the bands and artists I'd seen at Glastonbury too but I didn't and now I can't remember all of them. I've worked at every Glastonbury Festival since 2004 so there's quite a few! Some of the best performances were Arcade Fire in 2014, Muse in 2010 and Florence & the Machine in 2009. 

When Lily was born in 2016 I added an extra tab to my spreadsheet to keep track of the shows she'd seen. I don't know if she'll actually be interested when she's older but it doesn't take any effort to note them down, just in case. Interestingly, for someone who only turned 5 this year, she's already seen 73 shows, been to 3 Glastonbury Festivals and to 3 Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. 

Anyway, I miss live theatre. And whilst sorting out all my tickets and stuff, I thought it'd be nice to share these memories and anecdotes with other people. One extra thing I'd done with my spreadsheet is as well as simply writing down what show, where and on what date, I'd also kept a log of what days I'd seen them on. I had this silly idea at university which greatly amused me - I wondered if over the years I could see a show on every day of the year? (or almost every day as it's unlikely I'll ever be able to see a show on 25th Dec). So far, the tally is up to 239 days out of a possible 366 - which works out as 65.3% of the year. 

So I wrote an 8 tweet thread on Twitter (here if anyone wants to read it) explaining what I'd done with my spreadsheet for the last 25 years or so and then started a thread of #ShowsIveSeen tagging in the relevant theatres or venues and performers or companies and adding in any anecdotes or pictures. The idea was to add to the thread on each day I'd seen a show, using the information from my spreadsheet. I started on 7th June 2020 and possibly rather optimistically, wondered if life would be back to some kind of normal by the time the whole year had passed. In the first couple of months of 2020, I managed to see 9 shows and the last one I saw live was Mark Thomas at the Merlin Theatre in Frome on 7th March 2020. Even then, it felt a bit weird sitting with everyone else and I remember waiting in the queue for the toilet and watching people *still* not washing their hands. 

My Twitter thread seems to be being appreciated; lots of venues like my tweets and sometimes performers too. As you can see, I've had a few replies as well which is absolutely lovely. I've done 10 months of tweets now and the thread is rather long. I don't know if anyone else is interested really but it's kept me amused over the last year - I've enjoyed remembering the shows I've been to and sharing my pictures.

Anyway there's not really much point to this post except to a) explain what I've been doing on Twitter in case anyone has spotted my tweets and thought "what on earth is this?" and b) show off the celebrity replies I've had :-) 

 

Have Baby, Will Travel: Doing Glastonbury Festival

So the title's probably a bit misleading as we didn't actually camp (the joy of living 20 minutes away and working at the festival) but we still tried to made the most of all the child and baby friendly things on offer.

 

 

 

Friday evening we went into the festival about 5pm and took Lily in her little rucksack. Her changing bag was actually a large 35L rucksack which went on my back and contained everything she needed plus extra clothes for both of us. We went and sat on the hill overlooking the Pyramid Stage (along from 'that tree' for anyone who knows the site) and spread out the picnic blanket my dad had brought - we then had a sit-down welly-free area to ourselves :-)

 

 

 

  

I did buy Lily a pair of ear defenders (mainly so she wouldn't get too distracted whilst feeding) but I don't think she was too keen on wearing them! She stayed awake for Jess Glynne, bits of ZZ Top and Foals and then slept through 90% of Muse.

 

 

 

  

Having assessed the mud situation on Friday, we decided to take the pushchair in on Saturday, stripping it back to just the frame, car seat and the pushchair organiser (I have this one which is very good). We went in about 2pm and headed straight to the Kidzfield.

 

 

The NCT tent was our first stop, where they provide pretty much everything you could possibly need: space for feeding; high chairs; tea, coffee and biscuits for the adults; baby food; changing tables, wipes and nappies; sun cream; cheap wellies and sunhats and probably lots more I didn't notice. They also do baby bathtime every evening (which we took part in) and they provide the water, bath, bubble bath, sponges and towels and on top of all that, just like most of the Kidzfield tents, the place is a 'no welly' zone.

 

 

 

Next stop was the Baby Zone tent while my sister-in-law (Lily's Auntie J) went off to watch Madness. Lily had a jolly good mess around and I watched the older children play in the massive sandpit - which we will definitely be visiting next year.

 

 

 

We also joined in with a baby and toddler rhymetime (which Lily napped through half of) and had a go with some soft play equipment before taking a wander round the rest of the field.

 

 

There was lots of other things to do - face painting, making stuff, storytelling, theatre, fairground rides, live performances and a huge fairytale adventure castle - but that'll all be on next year's itinerary when she's almost 18 months!

  

 

The Kidzfield is only open from 9am to 7pm but outside these times there's an absolutely brilliant Rest 'n' Recuperation tent near the Acoustic tent which does the same sort of thing as the NCT tent but overnight - and all staffed by volunteers! Just before Adele played we stopped off there to change Lily, add extra layers, have a cuppa and sit in what seemed like the comfiest sofa ever to give her a feed.

 

 

On Sunday, we stayed home and had a rest!

  

So, what did we learn? Any top tips?

• A picnic blanket is incredibly useful.

• Make the most of all the free stuff from the NCT and Rest 'n' Recuperation tent.
• I'd recommend our pram - an ABC Design Cobra - as it did brilliantly against the mud.

• If it's very muddy and the baby's in a sling or rucksack, I reckon one of those ski pole/walking thingies would be useful.
• The toilets in the Kidzfield are much nicer (and sweeter-smelling) than the rest of the site.
• You don't look out of place whatsoever whipping a boob out to feed.
• Babies really will sleep through anything.

• Can I be a kid again just so I can play in the Kidzfield?

All in all, a very good weekend and one that hopefully will be even better (albeit more of a handful) next year when we've got a toddler running around!

This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

 

Attempting - a little bit of crochet (not very successfully though); I got as far as doing one small line of foundation stitch, then concluded I needed to spend a lot of time watching crochet tutorials on YouTube and that for the moment, knitting is far easier!

 

 

 Wondering - what knitted items all of my family would like for Christmas?

 

 

Discovering - the tunes of Bristol-based Balkan band, Sheelanagig. I think my workplace hosted a gig by them last year so I kind of vaguely knew about them already but never actually clicked onto Spotify and listened to their music. They're pretty good!

 

 

Erecting - a large plank of wood alongside the edge of the house which eventually will become part of Andrew's lorryport. I think he's hoping to start the proper building work this weekend.

 

 

 

Guesting - over at Jane's blog, Is That You Darling with a ramble through the books of my childhood.

 

 

Counting - down the days til Thursday which is when I'm back at our local hospital's Fracture Clinic to be x-rayed and if my ankle's healed, have the cast taken off - both an exciting and scary prospect. I've also had to inject myself with Delteparin every day for the last 6 weeks (to prevent blood clots) so fingers crossed I won't need to be doing that anymore after Thursday either!

(I probably should add in a disclaimer: most people don't need to do it for the whole time but because I was already taking a high level of oestrogen drugs (ready for our frozen embryo transfer treatment) that apparently means you're more at risk of blood clots hence the 6 weeks of jabs - all fun and games eh?)

 

 

 

What did you get up to at the weekend?

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 13th September

Saturday 13th was the date chosen by Jane (from Is That You Darling) for September's photo an hour challenge. It also marked one year since I first took part in her challenge!

 

It was a day we'd been planning for months; Andrew's dad turns 74 today so we'd organised Saturday as a mystery tour for him to a place he'd been meaning to visit for about 40 years.

 

 

8am -  We were up early to take organise our stuff and pack a flask and cake. Everything was planned out, all we had to do was pick them up around 8.30am.

 

9am - On the road with the in laws and the weather's not quite as good as we'd hoped for!

 

10am -  Brightening up a bit now but we were still only about halfway to our destination.

 

11am -  Onto the motorway for the last bit of the journey and luckily the M4 wasn't too busy.

 

12pm - Finally we arrived at our mystery place, Didcot to visit the railway centre museum.

 

1pm - Our first ride of the day was on a 1940 diesel GWR railcar.

 

2pm -  We made sure to explore the whole site including the locomotive workshop where one engine in restoration is this one, 4079 GWR Pendennis Castle.

 

3pm - Then it was on to the museum and archives bit where there's a striking picture of the map of what the rail network used to look like in South West England.

 

 

4pm -  Last visit of the day was the air raid shelter where you can experience what it was like to be in one while the bombs were dropping.

 

5pm -  Back on the road again, this time doing the short hop along the motorway to Swindon to find some dinner.

 

6pm -  Ed's Easy Diner was the other part of the mystery tour, all of us like the wallboxes and music so we put on a few songs while we were waiting for the food to be served.

 

7pm - I had a chicken BLT and sweet potato fries for dinner and had this gooey chocolate brownie for pudding!

 

 

8pm - On the way home now and we drove through Bradford on Avon where there appeared to be some kind of street party going on (we later found out it was the 'End of Summer Party' at the town's Arts Festival)

 

9pm -  Back home and unpacking our flasks and cake from earlier in the day.

 

10pm -  Then just to carry on our rock and roll lifestyle, we settled down to watch the end of Last Night of the Proms!

 

11pm -  And finally a cuppa and book before bedtime.

 

 

 

Pop over to Jane's blog to see when the October photo an hour challenge will be!

 

Also, check out what I was up to in...

September 2013

24 Hours at Glastonbury Festival

Last weekend me and my sister-in-law managed to get 4 and half hours sleep in the space of 48 hours (from 9am Saturday morning to 9am Monday morning), all because of one crazy, mad (but utterly brilliant) local festival.

 

 

 

 

I know, catchy title isn't it?

 

 

Anyway, here's what we got up to (literally) over the space of 24 hours...

 

 

10am - We'd been in the festival the previous night to see Elbow and Arcade Fire (who were both fab!) and we knew we'd be working hard over the next couple of days so a bit of a lie-in was definitely needed. Andrew got the tea and coffee ready while we were getting up.

 

 

11am - While we were packing our bags ready for the day, Andrew prepared a big fry up to start the day right.

 

 

12pm - This was the scene in our back garden. We're about a 20 minute drive from the festival itself so the fact that it was raining at home didn't necessarily mean that it would rain down there but it wasn't looking good!

We packed wellies, raincoats, umbrellas and bin bags just in case.

 

 

1pm - I made some bacon rolls ready to eat during the overnight shift.

 

 

2pm - The car was packed and we were ready to go (this is what my sister-in-law's car looked like after just one visit to the festival car parks).

 

 

3pm - We picked up our parking pass and headed towards the blue car parks. All the car parks are colour and number coded but you still have a job to find your car again!

 

 

4pm - After a 30 minute walk from the car park, we were almost at pedestrian gate C, right next to the theatre and circus fields.

 

 

5pm - We managed to catch the end of Lana del Rey on the Pyramid Stage and then popped into the Yeo Valley tent for some frozen yogurt, managing to time it just perfectly as the heavens opened!

 

 

6pm - The rains began to clear and we watched Robert Plant do his set on the Pyramid Stage.

 

 

7pm - My sister-in-law headed off to see the Manic Street Preachers on the Other Stage while I went off to see Marcus Brigstocke in the Cabaret Tent.

 

 

8pm - I had a bit of a wander around in-between Marcus Brigstocke (who finished at 7.30pm) and Goldfrapp (who were on the West Holts Stage at 8.30pm).

 

 

9pm - Right in the middle of Goldfrapp's set!

 

 

10pm - I met up with my sister-in-law at a little tent called The Cake Hole (which we always make a beeline for) as they sell cake, pudding and custard! I had Banana, Chocolate and Cinder Toffee Cake with a generous helping of hot custard and a cup of steaming hot sweet tea.

 

 

11pm - The last visit before heading out for our shift at midnight, we stopped off at the West Holts Stage to see a bit of Bryan Ferry.

 

 

12am - Signing in for our 8 hour shift! Our Carnival club mans two areas in Pilton, a farm on the main road and a little lane in the village itself. That night, me and my sister-in-law were watching over the farmyard.

 

 

1am - The view from the back of the farmyard over the festival site (the bright lights on the left are from the celebrity helipad).

 

 

2am - Keeping myself awake by reading magazines and books, whilst also keeping an ear on the radio just in case there's anything happening.

 

 

3am - The main road was still full of cars driving along; the light on the left is one of the farmyard barns and the lights on the right are vehicles!

 

 

4am - It's just beginning to get light over the festival site.

 

 

5am - Dawn had well and truly broken. It's amazing what a difference one hour makes!

 

 

6am - We managed to spy spots of blue sky up above the clouds.

 

 

7am - Looking a bit brighter and with the possibility of a nice day!

 

 

8am - Our shift was over and we're on the way home to a well-deserved comfy bed.

 

 

9am - And we're home! Back to bed for a few hours sleep before getting up and doing it all over again...