Keep Your Hands Inside The Carriage At All Times: Blackpool Pleasure Beach...(Part 1)

  We are not supposed to be holidaying this year.

We are skint.  We are beyond skint.

But when someone gives me the chance to review my all-time favourite place in the whole world so that I can tell everyone how fabulous it is, could I say no?

NO!

Of course not!

We stayed right beside the first hill lift!

We are literally just home from one of my favourite visits ever to The Pleasure Beach in Blackpool.

I have been going since I was a wee toot, but there is just something magical about taking your children somewhere that you love, especially when they are both old enough to appreciate the delights for themselves.

We appeared at the gates on Monday, the first week of the Scottish school holidays, and although it was quite busy due to end-of-term school outings and swathes of Glaswegian holidaymakers, it was relatively quiet compared to what it will be like in a few weeks - we literally walked straight to the front of the queue in the very official and efficient ticket office, where we were issued with our wristbands and vouchers for the day.

Noah's Ark - now no longer a ride, but kept as a beautiful entrance display.  A bit of history!

When I was a wee lassie, you simply wandered around the Pleasure Beach at whim, buying tickets at the booth in either singles or books and they were graded in terms of ride thrill factor (i.e, white knuckle was a couple of A tickets, B for mid-level thrills and C tickets for junior rides).  You can still buy tickets for individual rides, but the park now charges an entry fee of £6 (which includes use of some low-level attractions) and if you are planning on riding at all, you are always much better off buying a wristband, which at £21.99 for adults and £19.00 for juniors is a bargain (when bought online) - especially compared to a lot of other attractions in Blackpool, such as Merlin's recently refurbished Blackpool Tower attractions and The Zoo, both of which charged a fortune!

The Pleasure Beach has certainly moved with the times, and it is simply amazing how many people are involved in just getting everyone through the door.  The huge Ticket Office with multiple queue lines means that you get your tickets quickly and easily, while being given park basics before you set off - a helpful leaflet is available on the 19 rides which children can go on, with or without an adult and you also get a park map, coupons for eateries within the park (of which there are many!) and your park passes, so you can go in and out as many times as you like throughout the day.

Perfect!

At the entrance you also have the option to purchase a very beautiful piece of machinery technology, which Dave has dubbed 'The Tamagotchi Thing', which is in fact a Queue Bot, called The Speedy Pass.
I highly recommend the Speedy Pass if you are visiting with small children.  There are so many fantastic rides and beautiful rollercoasters at the Pleasure Beach, that it would be rude not to at least try to go on them! We used one, and I have to say that we never had to wait more than a couple of minutes to get on some pretty queued out rides!  It was great and really took the stress out of theme parking for us grown ups.

Traditionally, Dave and I ride The Ice Blast first,

Blasted to the top of this tower?  Yes please!

 but now that we have two small children in tow, we head straight for the family-friendly stuff, which as a white-knuckle thrill-seeker should kill me a little inside, but in my old age I'm getting all mellow and romantic about stuff, so we head straight for the famous Sir Hiram Maxim's Flying Machines - one of the oldest (if not in fact the oldest) operational ride on the park, opened in 1904.  Rumour has it that Sir Hiram Maxim himself didn't really admire his 'failed invention' and was disappointed at the fact that it was just a 'glorified merry-go-round', but I'm sure if he could see the longevity and joy it has brought to millions across the generations, he would be more than a bit chuffed.

A beautiful day for some flying!

Arty shot

Boys together

Me and my little thrill seeker

I swear they've never changed these signs!

Ethan - 'I not ascared anymore!'

There's nothing like a bit of flying through the air at speed in a captive flying machine to get your day off to a good start!

Next we headed straight to another of my old favourites, and one that I rode often as a child - The Alice In Wonderland Ride.

No, it's not Disney-esque in any way, but it is a really old and much loved interpretation of Lewis Carroll's famous children's book.  I love it because it's never changed - it is well maintained, and I notice a new section has been added to update it slightly.  And a new photo opp outside!

Fab new photo opp

Gorgeous lettering

Track porn!

Serious stuff

The Alice photo calendar - a family tradition!

Spotted!  Pretty sure this is a new addition?  Correct me if I'm wrong!

After Alice, we headed over to the BEST ride on the park by far.  IS it a rollercoaster? No!

Is it a static ride?  

No!

It's my all time favourite.

The Derby Racer!

Now it's changed a lot in recent years - it was given a gorgeous makeover in 2008, and the original racing mechanism is now sadly locked, but it's still quite easily one of the most underestimated joys of theme park revelry.

Magical sounds from the Verbeeck organ!

A glitterball horse!

 Proper horses which race very fast on a carousel to the tune of a mini wurlitzer type organ, which is really fabulous.  The tune playing when we were on this time was 'Walking On Sunshine'.  Perfect!

Excuse the blur - it's hard to hold a camera and a boy on a horse!

I always do a full blown grin with teeth and everything when I'm flying around on this one.  I always feel like time could stop and I could ride it forever - it's everything to me.  It's like time stops and I'm 5,6,7,8,9,10 again!  Amazing!

Check out my girlish grin *titter*

After this, the kids were antsy to get going towards Nickelodeon Land...so off we went! 

Waving to an old friend - The Grand National twin track racing rollercoasters!

An obligatory visit to the loo!

My favourite woodie - The Rollercoater (or newly named Nick Streak)

Crossing the bridge into small children's heaven!

Best view ever!

The miniature railway was looking fine today!

So early, Valhalla wasn't switched on yet!

 I practically skipped along the path and up over the bridge as I passed all of my old favourites in the bright sunshine!

What a lucky, lucky day!  To be continued...

Part Two can be found HERE

Pipe Cleaner Octopus Fun! Easy and Cute Make for Kids (and adults!)

What do you do when you are presented with a ton of pipe cleaners?

Surely they are crafting hell?  What do you do with them, apart from, well, cleaning pipes?  Aren't they the things that come in the craft box and get flung in the bin when they get all bent of shape?

The best I have ever done with them before was to make a pretty bad, spiky and tacky looking bracelet which fell apart within 5 minutes.

Today however, I decided to rise to the pipe cleaner challenge and craft a pretty cool Octopus.

It was easy - I had googly eyes.  EVERYTHING looks better with googly eyes.

For this, I used a handful of pipe cleaners - around 20.

I gathered them in a bunch, making sure to mix the colours and secured them at the top by wrapping another pipe cleaner around a couple of inches down.

I then straightened them out, and clasping them further down, pushed down until the pressure bent the wire into a pleasing oval shape, securing with another separate pipe cleaner - this will be the head.

Next, I twisted the long lengths of pipe cleaners around each other - two or even three at a time, in different colours to make some pretty cool, bendy Octopus legs.

It still doesn't look great, but bear with me!

I then gathered my legs very carefully (making sure I had eight - for some reason despite the fact that this was just for me and no children were involved, I had to make it anatomically correct.*)

*disclaimer - I'm too lazy to Google whether an Octopus actually has 8 legs or not.  I still felt like it should have 8 legs.  Because I'm crazy.

Then I stood him up to see what he would look like.  At this point I am quite chuffed with the outcome.

 

I mean, come on - that's pretty cool, huh?

But wait until you see this...

Wait!

 **************************drumroll***************************

 TAAAAAAA DAAAAAAAAAA!

I'm going to call him Stan.  Or Fred.  Fred the Octopus.

Hope that wasn't too anti-climatic for you.

Although, now I have a fab wee craft to make with the kids - I'm sure they are going to love it!

That time my Dad left

Looking back on it now, I have no idea how you did that.

I was nearly 4 years old.

The same age as my youngest son is now.

I can recall what happened so sharply, it's like it lives in a special part of my memory which hasn't been clouded by time or pushed away by other, more important things. It lives in it's own wee space in my brain, just for me; to replay whenever I want.

Lucky me.

You are walking down the path.

It's a moment that tainted the rest of our relationship, and a moment, I am sure, to your adult mind that didn't really matter.

As an adult, you are less aware - and I know from experience now - of the impact you make on a child's life.

Of the long-lasting damage you can inflict with the tiniest, seemingly throwaway acts.

This is me

I'm so excited to see you - it's been ages!

It's so easy to dismiss the young.  To believe that they won't remember what happened.  To trust the future and that you have time to change it for the better. To figure that you'll be able to erase the bad and replace it with good.

Daddy's home!

I know that it wasn't all about me, as you pointed out when I was older.  I'm so lucky to have never been through divorce or separation in my own adult life, but I know enough to know that the child in that situation should not have been ignored.  Should not have been discounted, given the circumstances.

Where you going Daddy?  You come play with me?

Should not have been left out of your wedding plans to your new wife.  Should not have had to choose between you and the new wife when things went awry. Should not have been used as a pawn in the games between you two. Should not have had to watch you post my birthday card through my letterbox and disappear into the night without you even knocking the door to say hello.  Should not have had to explain my anger over a fraught telephone conversation at sweet sixteen years old in which you shouted me down for being 'too flippant'. Should not have been watched at my school gates on exam day.  Should not have had to reconsider a relationship with my own two brothers to avoid my own children being involved in some toxic relationships the way my sister and I were when we were only teenagers.

You coming home, Dad?  I got pictures for you!  I been playing outside, Dad!  Where you going?  What's in the bag?

It's been a great night out as we all chill in my brother-in-law's house.  We've had a lot to drink - everyone is laughing, spirits are high.  We get onto the topic of someone we know who has maybe fathered a child.  The guy's quite sure it's his.  Someone quips that the child in question won't care; the child in question will be happy with monetary recompense.  No dad - just money.  There's laughter.

And all of a sudden I'm shouting.  I'm shouting about how that's not true. How the guy should get a grip. That the child won't care about money, or gifts, or   how much guilt-laden presents it has to unwrap on Xmas day or masses of oodles of cash in a birthday card hastily shoved through the door, or a ton of chocolate eggs at Easter.  The child needs her father. Her daddy. And if she doesn't have him - the questions!  The pain! The guilt!  The longing! The constant wondering of why she was never good enough! That's what she'll go through!  Can't you see?

The room stills to a stunned and embarrassed silence.  Because it's embarrassing for them.  My oldest friend squeezes my hand secretly under the table - only he and my husband know what I've been through; they are the only two in this room that know me well enough to know my pain.  My eyes brim with tears and my husband holds my shoulder protectively.

I swallow hard, gulping back the threatening tears and take a drink as chatter resumes.  Awkward re-commencement of previous piss-taking.

The others are irked and put out by the little nearly four year old, the confused seven year old, the awkward eleven year old and the angry teen who has just walked into the room. They are annoyed at the realism suddenly intruding on their joke.  The girl with 'Daddy Issues' just spoiled the party.

I thought I was done with this kind of feeling.

I excuse myself and go to the toilet.

Daddy, where you going?  Can I come too?  You going shops?  I like the shops!

I don't know how you walked away from your daughter that day.  The wee lassie with the messy ponytail, big green eyes and full of fun. The same eyes my wee boys give me when they cheekily ask for chocolate, or want extra time to play or are sorry for spilling milk on the carpet.  How you managed to ignore the wee girl who was so pleased to see you as you entered the close door and went up the stairs.

How you met her enthusiasm and expectedness with mere indifference as you told her to 'wait there', pushing past her to get out of that door without explanation.

Your black and white, striped, shoes walking up those cold stone stairs, back down again and out of the self-locking close door, completely ignoring your daughter, your little girl, as she put her small hands on the  fractured safety glass and watched as your 6ft 4inch frame grew smaller and smaller, until it disappeared into the sihouette of her outstretched palm.

She cried.  A lot.  Confused, frightened tears.


Dad!  Where you go?  Dad?

DADDY!

I don't know how you did that.

Whether it was misjudgement, pure desperation, cruelty, disrespect, emotion...I don't know.

I look at my youngest son now and I just know how much it would destroy his whole life if I did the same now.  Or if his daddy did the same now.  I can't imagine it.

I'm at a playpark with the kids.  I'm helping the eldest climb the climbing frame - it's tough going, but we are getting there.  He's clumsy, with feet too big for his body.  He's going to be tall.  He's always been big for his age.

I feel like I'm being watched - someone's eyes are making me uncomfortable.  A tall man with black and white striped shoes disappears into the distance.

This is how we communicate now.  Through sometimes-you, sometimes-strangers -who-look-like-you-in-the-distance.  You are a figure in the showreel of my mind.

Always walking away.

Always disappearing into the distance.

Single words.

Flashes in the crowd.

I guess I'll always be the girl with 'Daddy Issues'.

I'm getting there though

Family as it should be!

Why I Completely Suck At Being An Adult

1. I haven't been to the hairdressers for 3 years.  I cut my own fringe in.  I dye my own hair with packet dye.  Admittedly, I've stopped picking up shades of Powerful Pink and  Brazen Blue and Electric Purple and dreaming of fantastic transformations via semi-permanent, but still, I'm living in denial about the amount of grey coverage Raving Red gives my crowning glory.

   

   See (9)

2. I get I.D'd for alcohol all the time but instead of getting happy and whipping out my I.D while musing how fabulous and young I still look, I just act like a petulant teenager, because, guess what?  I left my I.D at home. Again.  I should, quite frankly, know better.
3.  I want nice furniture, but am I hell paying that much for a sideboard.  Why is furniture so expensive?  Who knew?  I can't reconcile my love of *nice* furniture with actually spending cold hard cash on it.  I'm not there yet.
   
4. I can't do anything I want.  I spent my whole childhood being told that 'when you grow up, you can do what you want to do'.  LIES!  I've never felt so constrained by life before growing up.  Now everything is complicated and hard and expensive and I am tired.  I need beer, but I'll get I.D'd at the shop, dammit. And my kids ate all my nice food.
5. My washing is never done.  Ever.  Even that one magical day where the washing basket was empty and all of the clothes were away, I found a pair of jeans and two nearly-mouldy jumpers in the boot of my car.  I got complacent in my victory, which is the reason why Washing Mount Fuji has reappeared.
6. I cannot eat whatever I want.  Apparently when I hit adulthood, my fat gene got turned on. I'm trying to eat healthy, but it's so hard.  I'm in more need of comfort food than I have ever been before. School runs will do that to a gal.

   

   Guess who got to move the stuff when we moved house on her own?

7. I don't really like driving.  As the sole driver in the house, it's sometimes freedom, but mainly it just means that I'm saddled doing all of the jobs nobody else really wants to do, you know, because I'm the one with the car. It's not the freedom I was led to believe it would be...
8. I'm hanging onto my youth like some kind of crazy person.  Seriously - I just threw out a cardigan that I bought with my first wage when I was 13.  But only because it had holes at the sleeves.  Until then I hadn't even thought about being too old to wear sugar-fuschia pink.  Or that my boobs were far too big to button it up.
9. Alcohol and poorly-made Nachos are apparently a legitimate meal option after a long, hard day. (read - crisps with cheese melted over them.  no dips.  I'm not always responsible enough to buy dips).
   
10. I can't move on from music I loved as a teenager.  I don't know why - I am just unable to listen to new music.  I actively spend my time avoiding it.  And now I have Spotify and Absolute Radio 90's, I don't have to listen to new music ever again if I don't want to.  Sorry kids, mum's never going to be 'cool'.  Unless 90's music goes old-skool and vintage and awesome, which I highly believe it will.  Everything does at some point, right? LeAnne Rimes anyone?  Can't Fight The Moonlight.
11. Don't put your hands down the back of my sofa, I beg you.  I looked down there once to reclaim the remote control and it wasn't pretty.  Yes, those are Cheerios.  No, there are no coins.  If there was I'd definitely be looking there more often. Trust me, I know where all of the coins are, we are too poor to not know where the coins are.
12. I never find a fiver in my coat pocket.  I am yet to be the proud recipient of  a long-forgotten piece of paper money.  That's hilarious!  I'm still waiting to be the kind of adult who carries a spare pound in her pocket for the shopping trolley at the supermarket.
13. Our house is the cleanest when we are expecting folk over.  Please don't drop in on us unexpectedly.  You won't be allowed in.  Our state of affairs lists from slightly messy to alarming.
    
14. I still have no idea how to do make-up past 'smear foundation over face until it blends in. Add mascara and eye stuff.  Distract with scary shades of lippie'
15. I've forgotten to pay Tom's gymnastics teacher two weeks in a row and got his dinner money envelope back this morning saying 'no money in envelope'.  I did remember to put his gym shoes in for After School Club though, so *high five!*

    

    Gimme a break - I was hugely pregnant here!

16. I have no stamina and I hate routine.I completely wear myself out being superwoman and then give myself a ten week holiday for being so awesome for those two days.
17. I have to take a new cup every single time I need a drink and I drive my husband crazy.  On my side of the bed I routinely amass a 'water cup' situation that borders on depravity. I hate myself for it, but last thing at night, I don't care.  I might not even drink from these cups.  I just fill one up with water, take it to bed and add it to the rest of my stash.  For no real reason.  
18. I can't throw out my old cuddly toys.  And what's worse - now my kids have cuddly toys and they love them and mine too, making it even harder to thin them out.  Now, between us, we have an obscene collection of stuffed animals. What if nobody loves them as much as we do?  We can't split them up - they're a family!  Haven't you seen Toy Story?
19. I always tell myself I have enough time to make a packed lunch in the morning.  I never have time to make a packed lunch in the morning.
20. I am always extremely disappointed that meeting up with friends is now generally for a cup of tea, a nice sober juice or just a quiet board game.  The pangs of regret that we are not getting tanked off of two bottles of wine and playing strip-poker are huge. Meeting with friends used to mean dancing into the late hours, doing crazy stuff and falling asleep on someone else's sofa before doing the walk of shame home.

Actually, I'm lying. That's the one part I don't really miss.  I'm glad I no longer have to wear uncomfortable shoes and sit in noisy, horrible, expensive bars. Or get sleazed on by pervy old men.  Or get so drunk that I can't see.  Or have epic hangovers. Or, admittedly, the walk of shame (even though there was something quite badass about it).  

But hell, I do miss that cheap beer at the student union.