This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

 

 

 Going - on what would probably be described as "an epic road trip" with Andrew and my sister-in-law.

Which started off with...


Travelling - along the M4 towards Maidenhead. Then...


Checking - into a Travelodge in Bracknell, quickly getting changed and...


Heading - out to probably the wedding party of the year celebrating the marriage of two of our friends, the lovely couple J & G who (along with J's mother), run the fabulous fairground, Carter's Steam Fair.
The rest of the night was spent...


Enjoying - the party, hosted in a circus big top complete with a set of gallopers in the middle, children's inflatable toys around the edge, a stage, fairground organ, showman's steam engine, live band Bjorn to Be, hog roast with a hot dinner later, bubble wands for everyone, and a mystery special guest (which if you follow me on Instagram, you'll know who I'm on about; if not, you'll have to wait until tomorrow!)

Staying - the night at the Travelodge before...


Driving - back along the motorway towards Bristol to drop off my sister-in-law who actually had a second wedding to attend, at lunchtime on Sunday. On the way we stopped at McDonald's and did some...


Munching - on their breakfast muffin meals served with a generous helping of tea (for me) and coffee (for the other two).

After our drop off in Bristol me and Andrew popped down to Ikea to do some...


Shopping - firstly in the café for more tea and some cake, then round the store for some Christmas stuff and one of the blogger cliques - the Ikea Raskog trolley.

After Ikea, me and Andrew drove south to Weston Super Mare and watched the sunset...

Before...

Browsing - round the shops (by this time I'd got quite tired using the crutches so Andrew pushed me round in the wheelchair), we picked up a few little things before they shut and then headed to one of the seafront restaurants for dinner, the Regent Restaurant.

(You know the film 'Never Let Me Go'? This is the café Keira Knightley sat in)

After dinner it was time to start...


Laughing - at comedian Seann Walsh who was playing that evening at Weston Super Mare's Playhouse (where sadly he'd only sold half the seats!).

Once the show was over it was time to do the penultimate bit of...


Travelling - back to Bristol to pick up sister-in-law from her wedding before heading on home for some much needed rest!

 

 

 

What did you get up to at the weekend?

101 Memories of My 1990s Teenage Years

I was most definitely a 1990s teenager; I turned 8 in 1990, 18 in 2000 and spent all of year 7 to year 11 right in the middle of the decade.

 

1. Inflatable chairs, inflatable backpacks, inflatable aliens, in fact, inflatable anything.

2. Mood rings.

3. Scatman

4. Collecting Pogs.

5. The relaunch of Spangles sweets (they were so good!).

6. Troll dolls.

7. Crying over 'Jack and Sarah'.

8. Smith's Tuba Loops crisps.

9. Shag bands and snog bands.

10. Morrisons supermarket being a novelty when we went on holiday up north.

11. 'The Crystal Maze' (the Richard O'Brien era of course).

12. 'Vindaloo' (the song, not the food).

13. Zig zag partings in your hair.

 

 

 

14. Flat Eric

15. Learning every line to Baz Luhrmann's 'Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen' and thinking how profound the song was.

16. All the anti-Ecstasy campaigns featuring Leah Betts.

17. Buying magazines in John Menzies rather than WH Smith.

18. Secretly watching 'TFI Friday' with the sound turned down so the parents couldn't hear.

19. Shopping in Safeway (and feeling so grown up when they let you sign up for an ABC loyalty card).

20. Dawson's Creek - were you a Pacey girl or a Dawson girl? (Pacey for me)

21. Playing Dreamphone at birthday parties and pretending that the boys on the game board were boys in our class.

22. Following Ellie and Dallas' relationship with baited breath in 'Sex, Chips and Rock & Roll'.

23. If you wanted a toy from Argos, always checking the Index catalogue to see if it was cheaper there.

24. Making your bedroom into some kind of hippy den with windchimes, incense sticks and dreamcatchers.

25. Findus Crispy Pancakes (can you still buy these?)

26. The Orange Man adverts for Tango (You've been Tango'd!) and then them getting banned after kids copied it in the playground.

27. Black trousers with skirts attached around the top.

28. Going on school coach trips and waving at everyone just to see how many waves or thumbs up we could get.

29. Being put off drugs for life by reading Tar and Gemma's relationship in Melvin Burgess' 'Junk'.

30. Kickers shoes (preferably platforms).

31. Watching 'The Big Breakfast' before school and then walking out of the house singing "Egg on your face!"

32. Hair mascara in all the colours of the rainbow.

33. Making your own compilation cassette by taping all your favourite songs from the Top 40 on Sunday afternoon.

34. Buying clothes from Etam, Select, Miss Selfridge and Asda's George range.

35. And not forgetting Clockhouse at C&A!

36. Feeling very grown up watching 'The Girlie Show'

37. Buying new school stationery from Partners the Stationer.

38. Lots of mini bulldog clips all over your hair.

39. Being obsessed by 'The Craft' and ever girl in my school wanting to be a witch.

40. The news that Princess Diana had died and the fact that they cancelled Radio 1's Top 40 that day.

41. Visiting Shoe Express for new school shoes.

42. Miners nail polish.

43. Reading 'More!' magazine (when we had the guts to buy it) and sniggering over 'Position of the Week'.

44. Tamogotchis.

45. Record bags.

 

 

46. The amazing silver corset the girl wore in the video for 2 Unlimited's 'No Limit' (aka. 'No Lyrics')

47. Browsing round The Gadget Shop and feeling cool.

48. Alisha's Attic.

49. Making pretend Ouija boards and scaring ourselves senseless with the lights out.

50. Buying cassette tapes for 99p from Woolworths on the week of release to avoid paying £2.29 once the song hit the chart.

51. Live & Kicking on Saturday mornings (081 811 8181!)

52. Velvet chokers.

53. Glow in the dark stars stuck to your ceiling.

54. Leader of the Labour Party, John Smith dying from a heart attack the morning after a big speech at a hotel.

55. Buying CD albums from Our Price.

56. Flared trousers.

57. Drawing smiley faces on everything :-) (but the proper way round)

58. 'Born Slippy' from Trainspotting.  

59. Blur's 'Song 2' (woohoo!)

60. Buying postcards from Athena.

61. Learning so much about life watching 'Queer as Folk' (and wondering if it's possible to fangirl (or whatever it was called back then) over a gay man - Stuart of course).

62. Glitter hairspray.

63. Loving and laughing at 'The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star' (which you can still watch now over on 4oD).

64. Pagers.

65. Impulse body sprays.

66. Fry's Chocolate Cream - the Five Centre variety.

67. Being amazed by what was shown on 'Eurotrash'.

68. High ponytails.

69. Boots Natural Collection.

70. All the hype over Knebworth.

71. Pulp's 'Common People' and 'Disco 2000'.

72. Scrunchies.

 

 

73. Strangely being attracted to manic depressive doctor, Danny Nash in 'Psychos' (another one which you can watch on 4oD).

74. Listening to the wives of prisoners ringing in to Late Night Love hosted by Graham Torrington.

75. The board game version of Atmosfear's Nightmare.

76. Fun House (Pat Sharp's mullet! The twins!).

77. Feeling oh-so-grown-up (and hoping the parents didn't find out) watching 'Sex and the City'.

78. Hamish Macbeth.

79. Rings and necklaces which had two parts to them so both yourself and your best friend could have a part each and then put them together because you're OMG BFF!

80. Learning the routine to Whigfield's 'Saturday Night' when it was actually released.

81. 'Father Ted' and the shock when Dermot Morgan passed away.

82. Learning all about love, legal terminology and Barry White from 'Ally McBeal'.

83.'Sister Sister' (Go home, Roger!).

84. Wallace and Gromit's 'The Wrong Trousers' (still an excellent film nowadays).

85. Blur's 'Parklife' (all the people, so many people...)

86. Plastic tattoo-style chokers.

87. Sparkly dresses, sparkly shoes, sparkly bags, sparkly everything.

88. Oasis vs. Blur (I was a Blur girl).

89. Choosing which girl you were from 'Friends'.

90. The two old guys singing the 'Macarena' (but you all learnt the routine anyway).

91. Big floppy hats with flowers on (à la 'Blossom')

92. 'Ballykissangel' (with Danny Byrne played by a young Colin Farrell).

93. Phrases like 'lush', 'dishy' and 'crush'.

94. Tie-dye everything.

 

 

95. Dancing skeletons in the video for Chemical Brothers' 'Hey Boy Hey Girl'.

96. Collection 2000 make up.

97. The tampon lady visiting school each year and all the boys being sent out to play football (does this still happen nowadays?).

98. Very small backpacks on very long thin straps.

99. All those girls across the UK crying when Take That split up.

100. Hangar 17 on BBC1.

101. Jack and Sally's wonderful relationship in 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.

Anything ring any bells?

 

(and if you can't remember the 1990s, then this whole post has probably just made no sense whatsoever)

 

(I've also had so much fun watching old 1990s YouTube music videos that I reckon I'm gonna have to write a post just listing my favourite 1990s music)

Here Is The News #20

Blogland Brilliance

Sophie is celebrating her one year blogging anniversary and also promoting an incredibly worthwhile fundraising event at the Eden Project in Cornwall on Saturday evening.

Charlie has some excellent news to share and her other half came up with a wonderful way of doing it!

Lily's very helpfully put together a compilation of crafty tutorials for easy Christmas DIY gifts.

Katie's been looking very glam as a bridesmaid (and also managed to make her own custard!)

Jane launched her '33 before 33' list - which reminds me I really need to make a start on mine before next month!

Beccy cooked the perfect autumnal cake - Slow Cooked Apple Crumb Cake.

Elise visited the awesome Summerlee Industrial Museum in Lanarkshire - we went there back in 2009 and thoroughly enjoyed it.

And lastly, Katie's put together a fabulous Christmas gift guide - if someone would like to buy me number 3 on her list, that would be excellent, thank you.



Exciting Events

I should've included this last week but last Wednesday was Jane's birthday - happy birthday Jane, hope you had a fabulous day and are still having a fabulous birthday recovery week!

Not an event you're all invited to sadly, but I'm very much looking forward to a wedding party we're going to on Saturday. Two of our friends who are part of the family who run Carters Steam Fair are getting married and their party is being held in a circus big top complete with fairground rides. Even better, my father in law has to drive the bride to Windsor registry office in a 1948 Scammell lorry (unfortunately he knows what could go wrong with the engine so he's not looking forward to playing chauffeur at all!)



Interesting Info

Over on 6 Music they're having a series of special shows from 8th to 21st November all celebrating the wonder of libraries. Guy Garvey took listeners on a tour of Manchester's libraries, Craig Charles investigated library music (the stuff used in the background for radio, TV and film), today at 4pm Steve Lamacq talks to the best libraries around the country and on Friday at 4pm he's broadcasting live from the British Library - the first time a radio show has ever been broadcast from there.



Blogs I've followed this week...

Tea in your Twenties

E-Elise Etc



What's new with you?
 

A Jacamo Coat-wearing Catalogue Man

 And now for something completely different...
{Monty Python style voice adopted}

A few weeks ago an email popped into my inbox that was perfect timing - would Andrew like to review a coat from the online retailer Jacamo?

"Well, yes I would" said Andrew excitedly (or as excitedly as a man can do) as he was on the lookout for a winter coat anyway and had heard of Jacamo but never bought anything from them.

Jacamo is part of the JD Williams chain (one of the catalogues I remember my mum getting when I was a child) and aims to be your hassle-free one-stop shop for menswear. It was certainly easy enough for Andrew to navigate (bearing in mind he's male, i.e. short attention span) as he'd quickly found a few different coats he liked the look of. The website is very simple to use, with plenty of choice and everything is laid out on the page so you can easily scroll through and look at pictures of all the items. You could also narrow down your search further if you were looking for a particular brand, colour, style or price range plus chat to a helpful customer service person if you had any questions via the live chat link.

The coat Andrew picked out was the Williams and Brown Hooded Jacket and I approved of it as well so he was on to a winner really.

He must've been looking forward to it as when it arrived, he actually opened it and put it on straight away - unheard of for most of his other mail and parcels. The first words he said were "very nice" (not in a Boris Johnson type way) and "I like it".

He's worn it almost every time we've gone out over the last week or so and the other few phrases I've managed to drag out of him are:

"good quality, feels and looks more expensive than it is"
"got a hood with drawstrings"
"lots of pockets, more than you realise from the website description, I like that"
"pockets that button up are good, you can put your keys in and not lose them"
"inside pocket is very useful"
"very warm"

Aww, he's so eloquent isn't he?

I wore it myself for 10 minutes as well (it was the only way to carry it around the house as I'm still using crutches) and Andrew was right, it is a very nice coat and very warm too. It has extra ribbing around the neckline and cuffs which helps keep the cold wind off your neck and arms. I like the colour of it and the checked bit inside is very pretty (although you can't see that bit when it's on). It feels like a really good sturdy coat and I daresay he'll spend most of the winter wearing it (meaning that I won't be able to chuck it in the wash when it's dirty - another brownie point for the jacket is that it's machine washable).

All in all, I think he made an excellent choice and Jacamo is one menswear website he'll more than likely be returning to in the future!

 

 

Andrew was very kindly sent his choice of coat by Jacamo in return for reviewing their website and the coat itself.

All words, opinions and photos are my own and Andrew's.

PR/Disclosure Policy

This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

 

 

 Watching - the last two big Carnivals for 2014; Friday night at Wells and Saturday night at Glastonbury. For the majority of Carnival clubs, that's it now til next year when it'll all happen again but with new designs, new themes, new music and new everything else.

Getting - drenched at Wells Carnival. The heavens opened and it chucked it down; I sheltered under an umbrella in my wheelchair but everything still ended up soggy.



Entertaining - my uncle who was down from Chester to watch the Carnivals and my sister-in-law who was up from Cornwall for the same reason.



Snapping - up reduced price cakes at a scout hall in Glastonbury which was open for food, toilets and warmth during the Carnival. We usually go there each year after the procession has finished (when they sell off all their food) and this year my dad remembered to take some plastic freezer bags to buy up extra cakes to take home. We even had some reduced price hot dogs (30p down from £2.50) and some cheap chicken soup.

Editing - lots of photos from last weeks Carnivals.



Browsing - a few knitting books I picked up at the library last week. One of them is called 'Woodland Knits'; and has some great deer hats, faerie wings and crowns - all beautiful but where would I wear them?


 

What did you get up to at the weekend?

An A-Z of Me - L

Libraries - It's safe to say I love libraries; I remember being a little kid and playing at running my own library with my own books so it was only natural that I ended up working in one at school and then again after university. Although I don't work in one at the moment, I'd love to become a proper chartered librarian and hopefully when I've finished my postgrad degree I'll be able to make a start on getting back into library work.


Learning - I love learning, I love knowing things, I love researching and finding out things and I was one of "those" children who adored school. I think it's in my nature that if I don't know something, I want to find it out and that was part of the fun working in a library - you were also discovering something!


Lorries - This wasn't something that was a huge part of my life before I met Andrew but I've had to learn a lot about old lorries over the last 10 years. Andrew spent his life before me restoring a 1952 Scammell lorry which used to work on the fairgrounds in the 1960's and we take it to various steam rallies during the summer. At the moment it lives at his mum and dad's house but pretty soon it's going to have a new (undercover) home on the side of our house.


Lemon drizzle cake - My favourite type of cake, although it has to be proper gooey and drizzly.


Lists - I am definitely a lists type of person. I have lists for everything and if in doubt, there's nothing a good list can't solve. My two biggest lists are both spreadsheets - one containing all the file names of all the carnival photographs on my other website (there's 29,698 entries) and the other one containing a list of all the theatre and comedy shows I've seen (345 at the last count - yup, I am that sad).


Lipstick - I never used to wear lipstick, I would always imagine people would be looking at me thinking 'ooh, that doesn't suit her'. This year though, I've tried to wear brighter colours and not worry about it. It still feels a bit weird but the more I do it, the more normal it'll feel.


Louisa - My first name begins with L and my surname now (after marrying Andrew) also begins with L.
I like to think I've got a very sing-songy name!


 

What 'L' things sum you up?

For the rest of the alphabet click here!

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 8th November

 

Last Saturday was the date set by Jane for November's photo an hour challenge. It fell on the same day last year when we headed out to North Petherton Carnival (as we've done every year since about 1990, albeit with our own families until we met in 2004). This year though, we didn't go :-( Where we park the car and where we stand to watch the procession are quite far apart and we came to the conclusion I probably wouldn't be able to walk it with the crutches and it would be difficult for Andrew to push the wheelchair all the way (it would've involved country lanes, grass verges and hills). Co-incidentally though, fellow photo-an-hour-er (can I get away with that?), Rebecca was making her very first trip to a Somerset Carnival and ended up in North Petherton for the evening!

 

 

My day panned out as follows...

 

 

9am - My day at the moment always starts with ankle exercises, pointing my toes up and down, circling my toes and putting the heel flat on the floor.

 

 

 

10am - Andrew cooked breakfast and a pretty good job he did too!

 

 

 

11am - I knitted the petals for a Remembrance poppy the day before and finished it off with a button and safety pin on the back.

 

 

 

12pm - Bath Theatre Royal's latest brochure popped through my letterbox during the week and I managed to nab myself front row royal circle tickets for two of their shows next year (Rebecca and Mrs Henderson Presents).

 

 

 

1pm - The other website I run contains over 28,000 photos of Carnival processions over the years. On average at each procession between myself, my mum and my dad we take around 800-1000 photos which I then sort out (getting rid of the rubbish ones to get the total down to about 300ish) and edit each one before uploading them to the site. I always try and do this as soon I can after each procession so I got started with editing the previous evening's Carnival at Weston Super Mare.

 

 

 

2pm - Still editing photos...

 

 

 

3pm - I hopped out to see how the building work was progressing to find a man armed with a staple gun.

 

 

 

4pm - Yup, the lights went on at 4, winter is coming!

 

 

 

5pm - My next bit of knitting is going to be 24 little knitted stockings to make some advent calendar bunting. I sorted out the wool and got started with the first one.

 

 

 

6pm - I got ready to go out for the evening, putting on my little boot and my big boot.

 

 

 

7pm - Roast! Although as Hayley pointed out on Instagram I made rather a faux pas, leaving some space on my plate when the aim of the game is to pile it high.  

 

 

 

8pm - Chocolate Brownie Sundae for pudding which was an excellent choice; there were several brownie pieces on top then a load of ice cream and then just when you thought you were getting to the end, there were some more brownie pieces hiding at the bottom!

 

 

 

9pm - We popped into our local Mr T's on the way home and Andrew snapped up these reduced price pork pies.

 

 

 

10pm - While Andrew was finding the pies, I picked up this copy of 'Simply Knitting', mainly because I really liked the star-topped pins as the freebie.

 

 

 

11pm - Just the same as the start of the day, the end of the day is more ankle exercises. It might be boring but the more I do them, the easier it'll be to walk again!

 

 

 

Pop on over to Jane's blog to see when the December photo an hour challenge is (and I'm keeping all my fingers crossed she chooses 13th or 14th December as that's my birthday weekend!)

 

 

 

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

November 2013