Filed under: Life | Tags: Bob the Builder, family days out, hovercraft, Model Village, pedalos, Portsmouth, Southsea, Summer, Teletubbies, Weather, Winnie the Pooh
Well I didn’t get to update yesterday because I was having such a fun time! The day out seemed like a success with numerous highlights.
Today’s post is gonna be a little different as it’s going in a form of a little photo story, well not even a story, more like number of storbsevations (stories and observations?).
So… the day began with everyone arriving virtually on time (quite a rare feat indeed), but plans hadn’t actually been made on what we were doing..! Anyway, after grabbing a couple of brochures from the library still nothing happened.
The weather was surprisingly really good seeing as the forecast suggested it was going to be overcast with possible rain. But looking at this weather didn’t help decide what we were meant to be doing or where we were meant to be going and by this time our stomachs were clouding judgement with lunch calling.
Lunch was interesting as it was jokingly suggested that we were a (rather dysfunctional) family going on a random day out – I was the father, with two rather noisy kids and a grumpy wife.
After this exciting meal, two ideas had then been suggested: Mini Golfing in some mystery location or going to Southsea. At the end of it Southsea was the choice.
On our way!
We passed Gary on the way...
Arriving @ Portsmouth
Where's the seafront?!
Finally after arriving, the “wife” was far more interested in the plant-life than what we were actually doing. Eventually ending up at an arcade and gambling money away... what a wonderful start to the day!
So after we won and subsequently lost money it was time to do something more interesting than being stuck inside playing on a, probably broken, machine. The question was then: What next?
The Answer…
DUCK!
A Pedalo, a duck pedalo in fact! We did all sorts of fancy manoeuvres and speeds and turns. It was wild!
There were swans also...
Ice Creams were next on the agenda. Who knows when this type of weather would appear? Ahhh British Summer…
Beach-tastic
Next up: a Model Village! It took us over 45 minutes to get round the whole thing. Everything was pretty amusing and hilarious in it. As quoted: “Best £2 I’ve Spent!“.
First off, the gravestones:
They had amusing “engravings” on them, for example:
In Memory of Charlotte:
Born a Virgin
Died a Harlot
For 16 years
She kept her virginity
A wonderful thing
In this vicinity
RIP
This spot is the sweetest I’ve seen in my life
It raises my flowers and covers my wife
This is no time for joking
This one did not give up smoking
Other amusing things included a dog which enjoyed being upside down:
A seagull that was the size of the house’s chimney:
What was more amusing was this village seemed to have some rather unusual residents:
From the Teletubbies, Winnie the Pooh and gang, the characters from the Wind and the Willows, Humpty Dumpty and Bob the Builder who seemed to own a zoo/farm.
Also! Thomas the Tank Engine and his rail-inclined mate James was the local the rail service.
Here is the midwife of the village who “delivers everywhere!”
There was also the Little Folks Middle School whose head mistress was Miss Behavior, the local Green Grocer was owned by Mr R.T. Choke and the Butcher was owned by Ivan Oxen.
All pretty bad puns…
I also found these Gypsies in the back garden of this resident who just simply waved at them, they also seem to own a tram service which goes nowhere.
I also found these exciting signs on our travels! I really wanted a hot dog that day… Advertising works! Granted that the Hot Dog was actually dressing itself to be eaten, kinda a suicidal message of which I doubt anyone actually will notice.
During the day we saw a lot of Wildlife… a totally amazing!
Finally we ended the day having fun by Southsea Castle and at the arcades again, losing yet more money!
Here’s the hovercraft that almost blinded us when it turned around blowing sand and sea water towards us!
During dinner, of chips and burgers/fish/sausages, the weather began getting bad. Ready for the rain that has occurred today! Hooray!
One final thing: According to the brochure we used, the parking is apparently… in the sea?
It was a very good day out overall!
Ps. If you haven’t already got this from the whole post… Southsea is a good place to go for a fancy day out!
Filed under: Life, Music | Tags: Cruise Ships, Michael Jackson, Shopping, Southampton, Weather
Today… I didn’t do much again! Looking outside the window I saw that today happened to be one of the very few sunny days in these recent weeks. Unexpectedly it was actually a very warm and sunny day (huzzah!)!
The view from the window!
As I look outside as I write this, it’s again very cloudy and now dark… looks like the Mr Weather-system is ready to unleash the downpour for tomorrow! Damn this Jet Stream!!!
Maybe there should have been some sort of plan to do something but there wasn’t it’s a little difficult really cos my friends don’t really do ‘spontaneous’ very well. This is mainly ’cause most of them are working today! There is one person who decided to be conveniently busy this weekend and has gone in favour of floating in the Solent today (in his yacht) – well good luck to him when the weather turns! Other times they’re just a little lame.
Anyway here’s the sky when it was very blue – just as a fun reminder!
Blue Sky
Friend-less, I then decided to have another exciting wander around town. I started from my building and headed towards the High Street/Parks but I was intent on walking back past the waterfront/docks as there the four main cruise terminals were all occupied today – which is a slightly fancy occurrence! The Celebrity Equinox sat at City Cruise Terminal, whilst the Crown Princess (number 2) docked at the Mayflower Terminal. The Arcadia was being fancy at the Queen Elizabeth II Terminal and then there was the Ventura who was berthed at the new Ocean Terminal.
West Quay Retail Park with the Crown Princess in the background!
I then thought it was probably going to be a bit busier in town, but that wasn’t the case. It actually wasn’t that much different. I saw there seemed to be a lack of people in the shops today but I hazard a guess that most of the people had flocked to the beaches (i.e. Bournemouth) to catch as much sun as they could get!
Anyway, on my travels I was then starting to contemplate buying something, because I hadn’t bought anything in a whole month (really I shouldn’t have been buying anything… but oh well!). I was thinking of purchasing a DVD, either: “Marley & Me” or “Watchmen“. I arrived at HMV expecting a nice £11.99 DVD price however Marley was £16.99 and Watchmen was £14.99..! I thought it was a little steep especially they were only single disc (2 Disc Watchmen was £19.99!). I thought I’d be a little more money-savvy and head to ASDA and Tesco Home both of which didn’t really improve the price £13.99 and £14.49 – um, yay?
I kept going back and forth to the shops and I finally decided: I was gonna buy “Dangerous” and “Bad” by Michael Jackson! In ASDA it was 2 for £8! So it goes towards me completing his Discography (albums only). So all I have left to get is HIStory, Blood on the Dancefloor (HIStory in the Mix) and Invincible (and King of Pop, if I was going for both album & compilation – post-Motown era – completion!).
OK, so it probably wasn’t was I was initially going to buy, but it was actually because it seemed the most exciting alternative in comparison to the DVDs of which I will have to wait to buy when they depreciate in value (around next month or so). Actually, I almost bought HIStory, Blood on… & Invincible today but I stopped myself from going MJ-mad in my purchases. I haven’t even really listened to/appreciated “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” as albums yet so I thought I’ll just do that this week and also listen to “Bad” and “Dangerous” and then I can purchase the others in the next few months!
Little side note… After listening to each album (chronologically), here is my (current) little hierarchy of his albums, pre-HIStory:
1. Bad
2. Dangerous
3. Thriller
4. Off The Wall
