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September, 2009

  1. Bookmarks for September 1st through September 2nd

    September 2, 2009 by Daniel

    Links for September 1st through September 2nd:


  2. Weston Trip Cont

    September 1, 2009 by Daniel

    Some other things from the mini-break:

    Weston Helicopter Museum
    Helicopters fascinate me and I’ve not seen many Helicopter museums around so Tony and I went along to the one in Weston based at the site where there used to be an airfield and Helicopter manufacturer. Despite scoffing from the females who decided to go Shopping instead I actually found it quite interesting and learnt quite a bit that I didn’t already know.
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    Westonbirt Arboretum
    Despite it’s name it’s actually about an hour away on the M5 and then along the M4 East a bit. Kate has fond childhood memories for the place and it was a really lovely place. We hadn’t realised it was the National Arboretum and therefore unusually large. There was a thing going on called “The Festival of the Tree” which is quite grand sounding – they had loads of craft exhibitors and a wood sculpture competition.
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  3. Banksy vs Bristol Museum

    September 1, 2009 by Daniel

    Made a bit of a slight mini-break out of this bank holiday and managed to integrate what’s normally a Bristol and straight back to Manchester trip out of seeing Kate’s eye Doctor into a nice relaxed 5-day trip.
    It’s probably one of the last times if not the last time we’ll stay at Kate’s parents place in Weston-super-Mare as they are going to be moving up north so we made the most of it and tried to pack in all the things we had thought about doing down there.
    We had an early start for Kate’s appointment so we drove over to Bristol, misjudging it slightly. So we went for a quick walk around the city – it’s such a nice city too. We’d heard about the Banksy exhibition at the Bristol Museum and were both keen to go – i’ve been into his stuff for some time. But we’d also heard that there was a 4 hour queue and basically you had to be there by 11.30 am or you wouldn’t get in at all that day. So we went down and looked by about 9 am and this was the state of it:
    Queue for Banksy
    We thought about joining the back of it but could’t really face it that day. So we went home and I serviced the Lanos with Kate’s dad.

    Kate decided we shouldn’t miss it though and resolved we would get up at 6am the next day and race down to Bristol. We got there about 6.50 and were about 10th in line, or so it seemed. When we turned the corner there was a lot more than that but at least we’d made it into the front holding section outside the museum and not the massive one on the road that was closed next door. Pretty happy with ourselves that this was the right thing to do and it would have been a shame not to take the opportunity (and only a few days before the exhibition finished on the 31st August). The nice staff let us in early at about 8.30 (we were expecting 9.30) after I’d jumped the fence to fetch coffee and cakes – using my nice shiny Visa PayWave card on the way – and immediately as we entered started grinning. It was really good!
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    As always more pictures here.

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