Todays Adventure....... "On Yer Bike"!!

The weather here today was fantastic (for a change) so off we went to New Brighton to see the Wirral show which was on all weekend. I was expecting a lot more than there actually was so I was a little bit disappointed, until I saw these guys......Basically 3 nutcases doing bike stunts, they had a ramp set up for take off and a landing ramp which was on the top of a truck!! They obviously had their brains removed before fitting their helmets (Sounds like me when I had my bike :-))

The first 2 pictures don't really show the scale of what these guys were doing because I wanted reasonably detailed close-ups but here's one that kind of puts things into perspective
This guy is still on the way UP!! they at this point added a car on top of the truck landing ramp which you can just see the edge of on the right, these guys got some serious height on these jumps.

Other than these guys and hot dogs with onions there wasn't really a lot that turned me on BUT for the big kids there was a funfair, step up Daredevil Macky and cue Mission Impossible theme tune...

"I want to go on that one"!! "The one that throws you around in the air upside down whilst doing 360 degree spins at 100 miles per hour, 150feet off the ground " "I'll get in the Q" :-)

Now those of you that know me or have read past posts know that there is no power on earth that's going to get me on that thing so guess who's going it alone....
This is a closeup of Macky hurtling toward the ground at light speed about to be turned upside down (That reminds me, I must get her life insurance sorted). The Strange girl next to her looks about to throw up.......

So she finally gets off the ride from hell and her first comment? "Lets do that again" :-)

I think not! move along, until, "I want to go on that one" "That one that spins you round on every imaginable axis until you vomit" Here we go again......

This one actually looks like a giant blender gone wrong, The person who designed this ride must have strange dreams but "Off We Go"

On a good note, it seems Daniel has inherited my dislike of heights :-) a very undervalued characteristic in my opinion which will hopefully keep him out of danger in the future. He did tackle the aeroplane flight and the Ski Jump though......

And that was the story of the day, not too exiting but hey, what else are you gonna do on a Sunday :-)

The Woodvale Rally is coming up soon and I'm really looking forward to it. It's a show of classic and modern cars & motorbikes, all manner of military vehicles, an air show with the Royal Air Force and Navy and also model plane exhibitions, plus all the usual stalls and stands, should be great fun :-) Of course I'll be taking my camera.

Viva Espana

Three days later and I've finally recovered from the trip to Spain...... (Crappy flight times).

We had a really good week in Alicante (Benidorm) we managed to get a last minute break for a week and Daniel stayed at my sisters so it was just Macky & I going away.

Benidorm isn't really my idea of the ideal holiday with about 99.9% of it being English or English geared anyway, I would have preferred something a bit more traditional, or less commercialised at least. Anyway, you cant expect too much choice when you want to go the following week.

For anyone who does like Benidorm, I would recommend this place though

This is the Levante Club Hotel, its a four star place that looks like its just been refurbished but the service was really good, the pool area was immaculate and the pool bar was open very late.

The food was a bit different though.......

One of the places I wouldn't recommend unless you have a long afternoon nap first is the notorious bar strip (Yes Bar Strip not Strip Bar) in the town, full of good humoured fun and conversation and lots of special offers to entice unsuspecting holidaymakers to stay up til the very early hours of the morning.

We couldn't believe that it was so lively at 5am in the morning, we had to go back several times to make sure we hadn't made a mistake :-)

That was the other good thing about the hotel, the maid just came and went in the morning and if you were still in bed she just came back later in the afternoon. God only knows what she saw when she walked into our room at 10am :-)
Another good thing about going on holiday is that I no longer have grey hair!! it's now called "Sun bleached" I think it's time to give Andrew a call for some advice :-)
On the couple of nights that we did make it back to the hotel early they had shows which were followed by late night Bingo. The first night that Macky played she won 2 tickets to the spa which we used on our last day there (Very nice & very relaxing) the next evening she played again, and won again to the utter disgust of the other hotel guests who probably thought it was a fix :-) this time she opted for the bottle of Champagne as it was our last night.
Here she is showing off, the Chikki Chikki Bingo Mama (Too long a story to go into here...)
Anyway, we both enjoyed it thoroughly and it was a great break, I think Daniel probably enjoyed his break from us as well and got away with all sorts out of sight of Mum & Dad although Sue says he was a little Angel, hmmmm....

Yorkshire & Back to Black.....

Ok, I havent updated the blog for a while because.... well there's been nothing to update it with until now :-)

I've been pretty much sitting on my arse doing nothing and enjoying the break since I left Prague but as I said we would, Macky, Daniel and I went across to Yorkshireville to catch up with Andrew Cave his wife Jayne and daughter Chloe.

All in all a good trip and we stayed over at their place on Saturday night for a session on the pop and a chinese :-)

Now I have to get this next bit out of the way, take a look at this picture..................

A fairly innocent picture of Andy & Mandy having a brew in the garden, I hear you say.............

Well its actually a lot more sinister than that,,, just after this photo was taken I was speaking to Jayne about how remarkable it was that Andrew showed no signs of going grey whilst I the very much, much younger of the two of us exhibited slight highlights, "it must be the stress" I said "Oh No" says Jayne "Thats because Andrew colours his hair" Well @*&$ Me!! for 4 years he's been denying it and here he is shopped by his wife :-)

Anyway, the evening progressed and before Andrew & I excused ourselves to the pub we opened the last 2 remaining beers that Andrew had brought with him from the Czech Republic.

Can you tell what they are? they went down very well :-)

The girls had a good time and I think they were glad to get rid of us to the pub for an hour (or 2) I actually wanted to go back to their place after the first pub but Andrew insisted on me visiting every pub in the village (All 2 of them). He said it was like a welcoming ritual in Yorkshire but I actually think that he wanted everyone in the village to know that he wasn't lying at all and he did indeed have a freind :-)

Here's the girls a couple of glasses into the night

The following morning, Jayne suggested the six of us take a trip to York which is only half an hour from where they live. York is a really nice historic city and there is loads to see, unfortunately the great British weather wasn't on our side so we only stayed a couple of hours and had lunch but here's a couple of the pics.

Macky & Daniel doing the tourist bit...

Constantine the great who I think founded York City? I could be wrong...
The very famous York Minster
It really was a shame about the weather because I wanted to get some good photos of the kids but as I said, still a very enjoyable couple of days catching up and having fun, hopefully we can do it again soon. Our thanks to both of them for the invitation :-)