Alton Towers

Yesterday Me, Amanda and a friend Martin went to Alton Towers. Probably the best theme park in the UK. Me and Amanda normally try to go at least once a year as we only live half an hours drive away from it. But this trip to the theme park was like no other trip, as it totally pissed down with rain all day. But we anticipated this and took lots of waterproofs and ponchos with us.

Amanda standing near the entrance before the heavy rain started.

Even though it rained all day we still had an excellent time. I even think the rain made it more fun that day, but sunshine on the next visit would also be good. The main attraction this time around was the new ride, called Rita. This ride straps you into a carriage and propels you like a rocket. The acceleration at the beginning takes you from 0 to 100kph in 2.5 seconds, and by god do you feel it.

The new ride, Rita. It's like being shot out of a canon.

Being the new ride we had to queue up for quite a while, over an hour in fact, but the wait was worth it for the terrifying experience like being shot out of a canon.

In the afternoon after a bit of a soaking.

One of my favorite rides besides Air and Nemesis, is the fairly recent ride called the SpinBall Wizzer. Basically this is a conventional rollercoaster, but instead of a normal car that faces forwards, the car is like a waltzer, so it spins around whilst going around the track, and when you are plummeting down a steep twisty drop and the car spins around so you are facing the sky, it really is a different experience. I recommend not eating before you go on it.

Spinball Wizzer

Unfortunately we couldn't go on Air. We queued up for it, and the wait was estimated to be about an hour, but 2 of the cars broke down, so they only had 1 working which would have put the wait up to over 2 hours. Me and Amanda weren't to bothered as we had been on Air loads before, but Martin hadn't been on it before. Better luck next time.

The River Rapids

After doing all the normal rides we made our way to the water rides. The first one we did was the River Rapids. Luckily because of the bad weather that day people didn't really want to go on this ride, so there was hardly any queue. The water was quite fierce, but it didn't matter we was wearing water proofs. We enjoyed that one so much Amanda wanted to go again, so we ran around to the entrance for a 2nd soaking. After that we went on the Log Flume, not the most interesting ride, but still a good laugh. Me and Amanda sat in the back of the log, and poor old Martin sat at the front. He got even more soaked, which made us laugh. Well Me and Amanda anyway.

Mat just pointed me to a photo taken when we went with Mat, Clare, and Steve and Jo. I had to put it here because it is hilarious. It was taken on the Log Flume about 3 years ago.

The Daily Grind

I have been getting a fair amount of traffic to this site from America, and using my stat counter I can see the blogs that have visited mine, so I always like to have a look. Quite a few blogs show photos of the area people live and the things they get up too. Even something boring like the daily routine can seem quite interesting to other people, especially when they live in another country.

So, this morning I took the camera with me and took a few photos of my journey to work. I live in Belper in Derbyshire in the UK, but have to travel to Coventry which is past Birmingham. The journey is about 60 miles, but I decided not to drive it as the traffic can be quite bad, so instead I get the train. I get up at 6am and drive down to the train station in Belper for the 7am train.

Walking to the train station.

I could walk from the house to the train station but that would add 20 minutes to my journey, so I drive. Lazy I know, but if you had to do this every morning, you would too, just to reduce the journey time.

Belper has a very small train station. It consists of just the train platforms, so there is no ticket office. The photo below was taken about 6.45am. About 5 minutes later there were about 30 people waiting for the train to Derby.

Once I get to Derby station I have to get the 7.20 am train that goes to Bournmouth. This train goes direct to Coventry which is handy. If there are no delays then I get into Coventry station about 8.20am. I actually quite like getting the train, as it means I have some time to myself in the morning were I can either read a book, work on my laptop, or just catch up on some sleep.

Once I get to Coventry I have a short 5 - 10 minute walk to the office. Part of that walk takes me through a small park. I think this is the only big of greenery in Coventry. The rest is just a huge concrete mess. Coventry used to be a very nice looking place until it was bombed flat during World War 2, so to rebuild it they just made everything out of conrete. Can't say I blame them, having your city bombed to pieces can't be too nice.


The picture below show the tower block were I work. Nice isn't it :-). This block is right in the center of town, so it's handy for the shops.


I get into work just before 8.30 am. I am normally one of the first people in. As you can see from the picture below, the office is fairly quite.


At the end of the day I basically have to do the journey backwards. I need to go from Coventry station back to Derby. Then Derby to Belper, then drive back home. I've only been at this job for 2 months, and so far the traveling has been quite bearable. Lets see what it is like after 6 months :-)

Bakewell Tarts

This afternoon we decided to drive up to bakewell. Yes, that's Bakewell where the tarts come from. The cake that is :-)


To be perfectly honest, there isn't a huge amount to do in Bakewell except walk around a few shops, but the weather was nice and we hadn't been there for a while. After walking around a few tacky tourist shops we ended up in a shop that sells Bakewell tarts, so we bought 5 for £2. And they were lovely :-).


After walking around Bakewell we drove up the road to Rowsly and got some lunch in a pub then headed back to Belper. I then had to trim the hedge that goes around most of the house. This is a job I really hate but it has to be done fairly often. Ho hum, I guess I'm not green fingered. I think I would rather have a concrete yard :-).

Darrens Summer Party

Last night Me and Amanda went to Darrens summer party at his house in Ilkeston near Nottingham. A load of people I used to work with was there too, so it was good to catch up with all of them. Darren and his girlfriend Elly had hired a bouncy castle for the garden, which was top fun, although I started to feel quite sick jumping around on it after 5 cans of Stella. Some of the other guys were quite adventurous on it though and started doing all kinds of flips and moves. Not me though, I just jumped and fell over. No change there then.

They also had a swing ball game set up, which I think was meant for the kids, but people instead used it as a means of releasing their anger as the thing got quite a bashing. When Rob was playing he nearly destroyed half of the bush near the fence :-).

Me on the bouncy castle.

Amanda having fun on the castle.
I think she wants a bouncy castle of her own how.

Darren with Amanda at the end of the night before we went home.

Lazy morning

Had a very lazy morning today. I had to get up quite early as Amanda had to put her car in the garage, so I followed her down there in my car so I could give her a lift back. Since getting back I have decided to reformat my pc. My machine is a kick ass P4 3ghz with a gig of ram, but I had so much crap installed on there it was starting to go quite slow. But now I have reinstalled it all and only put on the application I use, it feels like a brand new machine :-)

This afternoon I am going to a party at Darrens house. I used to work with him at my last company so hopefully some of my old workmates will be there too. I'm sure it will be a very drunken and silly afternoon, so I'll post the pictures tomorrow.

Photos for sale

I've put some of my photos up for sale. If there are any you like you can purchas the high resolution versions from here.