Saturday 30 June 2012

Getting our (Air) Kix

When asked what he wanted to do for his birthday -
Mr Ben only had one answer - INDOOR SKYDIVING!

He saw it on TV a few years ago - and has been desperate to have a go ever since.

I booked a "Family Flight" session  at Airkix  (near the Trafford Centre)
so that we could all have a go.

We got there early - so we could watch other people having a go in the windtunnel


 - it looked amazing and Mr Ben studied it all intently.
He was so excited that by the time we were going through for the training and to suit up, I was having to hold him back.


Then it was our turn to step into the wind tunnel with Mike our wondefull patient instructor.
He was there to help us balance, to give instructions about where to position our arms and legs and and to get us flying!

Mr Ben and Miss Megs took to it at once - while Al and I found it a lot harder - but even so it was the most amzing experience - especially at the end when Mike took each of us soaring up and down to the top of the tower and back!

We have a DVD of the session which I will upload once Al has edited it - but for now here are the photos of us all flying for Ben's birthday!





Afterwards Mr Ben declared the whole thing "mindblowing awesome" - and I think I agree!




Thursday 28 June 2012

One month today....

.... we will be at the London 2012 Olympic Games - 
our first event is Judo on the first day of Competition.

I've been excited about  this since the announcement on 6th July 2005
 (Mr Ben was in Nursery, Miss Megs in Year 2)

It's getting so close - and today the first of our tickets were delivered!


Wednesday 27 June 2012

Yellow Belt

Mr Ben has graded up to 4th Mon in Judo -



- and he's very pleased with himself.

Monday 25 June 2012

Miss Megs and the Harry Potter Tour

While we were busy having our One Day with Elbow at Live From Jodrell Bank, Miss Megs was having her own One Day on a day trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford!

Lots of photos of the Studios, Miss Megs and her friends follow!



























Sunday 24 June 2012

One Day Like This!

It's been a long time since I went to stand in a field to listen to a band play -
 but when that band is the fabulous Elbow, there really was no debate.

An added draw was the gig was taking place in the grounds of Jodrell Bank , with the promise of the Lovell Telescope being used as a giant projection screen.


Having left Mr Ben with Gma and Gpa
we collected lovely friends Kathie and Ian and set off for a day of science and music.


During the afternoon/early evening there were support bands on the stage (Liannne La Havas and Field Music rather good, Willy Mason ok, Cherry Ghost we missed altogether) -
but we only wandered in and out, spending most of our time in the Science Area.


There were talks, demonstrations and displyas - all in the shadow of the Lovell Telescope

{ I've always loved Jodrell Bank - from childhood days out, to time spent there as a physics mad 16 year old on courses at Manchester University, when the director told us in confidence that the Mark I telescope would betelescope was to be renamed the Lovell Telescope!}


As darkness fell, we had made our way to near the front of the crowd,
and the telescope was turned to face us.



Elbow were everything that I hoped for - I just love their sound -
Guy Garvey (#thebestpeopleareborninbury) is the most fabulous singer,
the band the smoothest musicians.


The rain that had threatened all day
(Garvey joked that the weather forecasts had sounded like a biblical catastrophy)
started ten minutes in and never let up.
But Guy was still happy to join the crowd and get soaked with the rest of us.



All the best songs -
Weather to Fly, Build a Rocket Boys, Lippy Kids, Leaders of the Free World





The projections on the Lovell were breathtaking.


I've found this great video of the final number - of course it was One Day Like This -
we were about 10 metres behind this camera man - singing our hearts out!


And this one shows the fireworks - we were somewhere in front of this camera!





As we walked back to the car through the mud and the debris, the final projection was a Union Jack on the telescope - perfect.
Admitedly there followed a 2 hour wait in the car before we could get out of the car park -
 but the flasks we'd left there were still hot, so we had coffee and jaffa cakes and just sat it out.

Nothing was going to spoil a very special day - our one day like this!