This month was the month of being made unemployed, two weddings, a funeral and a theme park, so a bit uppity downy for me (literally). It got off to a mixed start with my last day of work. I haven’t mentioned my work up until now really, so let me explain. I worked, up until this month, in a bureau de change in WH Smiths in Solihul. It was hardly a sensible business choice in opening it there, seeing as opposite/adjacent the store was 4 other bureau de changes. Needless to say, business was sloooooooooow, to the point where I’d take a book from the book department upstairs and read it in one shift ¬¬. So yeah, after working there for little over a year, they decided to close the branch.
It wasn’t all bad though. I got some nice redundancy pay and also would be getting student loan for my final year, so I wouldn’t need to work, although an income would be beneficial.
Following that final weekend of paid employment, me and Viv made our way south, to the sleep realm of Devon, home of farmers and hobbits! It was my dads wedding, third times the charm, and me and Viv had been invited.
We first made our way to Bicester, where my brother would give us a lift down to Devon. Viv enjoys big sofa + big TV whenever we are down.
The journey down was a bit hecktic, as on the way, my brother had a prang with another car. It looked a lot worse than it was and my bro was a bit shook up. It didn’t help that the husband of the driver in the other car kept getting up in Chris’ face, which was really intimidating for him.
We finally made it down to my dads. As is a tradition there, we made a fire and blew stuff up!
I’m not kidding. Whenever I go down to my dads, we always start a little fire in the garden burner and drop a can of something into it to watch it explode. I think this time it was a tin of kidney beans, which sprayed burning beans all over his (and his neighbours) garden with one helluva bang!
For all the isolation, the view was quite nice
When it came to the actual ceremony, all in all, it was quite a nice little affair. The whole thing was held at a post restaurant by the side of a river, and I have to say, I scrubbed up okay. My brother was best man/photographer, two responsibilities I was glad not to burdened with. I had to laugh at my dads reaction when trying to get round explaining that he’d asked Chris to be his best man, I interrupted and explained that a) I expected him too, as Chris spends more time down with my him than I do and b) I HATE speeches. I’ve never given one, but I don’t EVER plan to.
Chris gets his photography on while my dad posses.
Seeing as we were down for a few days, my dad paid for ‘us kids’ (me and Viv included) to visit Crealy Park. Think of it as a kiddy theme park combined with a petting zoo. It was a bit immature, but still fun. Viv had a lot of fun in the petting zoo part, especially around the rabbits, as this facial expression will testify:
Following our little day trip, me and Viv had one good nights sleep before the journey back to brum, for the following day, we would be travelling into London for a CHINESE WEDDING!
A CHINESE WEDDING is worthy of ALL CAPS for one simple reason; the food! We were only going to the banquet, which is simply the best part.
I can’t remember all the courses we had, but there was easily more than six! I had roast piglet, fish, crabs, prawns, beef, sticky rice, *drools* and it was all so good. I think the piglet was my favourite, prooving the following graph true
Viv and I had a lot fun in London and at the banquet, but we were both glad to get back and relax a bit from travelling. Well, my relaxation would be short lived. A little over a week later, my gran passed away. She had been suffering from cancer and to be perfectly honest, it was a blessing for the suffering to be over. I’m not really the kind of person that dwells on or is bothered by death. My approach to mourning is that you shouldn’t. Celebrate the persons life instead. So, back down to Devon, this time for much less cheerful reasons than my previous visit.
Just to prove that this truly was my month of epic travellings, the day after getting back up from Devon, me and Viv were heading down south again, this time to Guildford for Viv’s resits. I was going because it would be a chance to hang out with some cool peoples and offer Viv moral support (not that she’d need it. Viv is most awesome with exams) Little did I know what awaited me!
You see, Will and Hannah were planning and driving to Thorpe Park! And I had some BOGOF vouchers courtesy of my mum! So me and Viv got to go to Thorpe Park with Will, Hannah and Annie, for free! And it was AMAZING! I’ve been to Alton Towers before, but there was something better about Thorpe Park. It had similar rides to Alton Towers, but they were bigger, fasted and higher. Here’s a little summary of the rides we went on:
Samurai – A three on three spoked ride with chairs on each arm and the arms swivelled. Not very long or fast, but quite dizzy making.
Colossus – A long, standard type rollercoaster featuring the most number of loops of any coaster in the UK. This was definitely lot of fun and a good description would be Quiddich as a ride.
Nemesis Inferno – Much like Nemesis famous at Alton Towers, a feet loose coaster, but faster and higher, and long I think.
X:/No Way Out – A backwards facing rollercoaster, in the dark. This one wasn’t too fast, but very disorientating.
Vortex – 6 sets of inward facing seats on an arm that swings through an almost 360 degree arc, this was the first ride we went on, and a bloody good start to the day.
Stealth – This was an incredible thrill of a ride. Basically, you accelerate STUPIDLY fast (0-80mph in 2 seconds), then travel straight up (over 200 feet). After that, you pass over the outside of the arc at the top and plummet downwards. I had to close my eyes for this one, only to open them at the top and all I saw was sky, until the car when further round the arc and I saw the whole park!
SAW – This was a ride based on the popular film series and was probably the best ride there. It featured stops, starts, loops and vertical drops. At one point it looks like you’re going to drop straight into some blades, but the car dips just underneath them. A great ride.
All in all, the 5 of us had an amazing time. Annie didn’t like Stealth so much, actually turning green in the queue as we waited to get on, but she loved the other rides.
All things considered, I think this was a really great month, even with my Gran dying. But in a way, that was a good thing too, because it meant she didn’t had to suffer the cancer any more, so there’s always a silver lining.
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