11 August 2021

We Have Lift Off

Another day, another city. This time a short hop across the East Midlands to Leicester for Rocket Round Leicester. This was the first time I had done a trail here, but having friends who live there I was familiar with the city. At least that’s what I thought. Given that the National Space Centre is in Leicester they had gone with Rockets as their choice […]

8 August 2021

A City Ramble

After leaving the hotel we headed to the area around the Botanical Gardens to pick up the four remaining bears before we set off south for our next trail. In around an hour we were arriving in Derby, home of the Derby Ram Trail. Derby is a city I am familiar with, having done numerous enjoyable pub crawls, but it was the first time I […]

6 August 2021

Bear Necessities

Lincoln done. Time to move on. To Sheffield. This year the city is running the Bears Of Sheffield trail, 61 bears spread far and wide. This is the second trail I will have done in Sheffield following on from the Herd Of Sheffield back in 2016. Like last time the trail isn’t confined to the city centre, there are many sculptures on the outskirts – […]

2 August 2021

Impish Behaviour

So it’s the start of the holiday and the first target is the Lincoln Imp Trail. This will be my third time visiting Lincoln for an art trail, but this time there are not only 30 Imps around the city but there is one outlier. I opt for the logical move, pick off the outlier before heading in to Lincoln for the main event. After […]

24 July 2021

A Holiday? Really?

Yes. Well maybe. As listed elsewhere on the site there are a number of Public Art Trails around the UK this summer, and given the complete lack of a holiday for over a year, not sure why, I figured that this was a good enough reason to make plans. I have decided to concentrate on 10 of the trails in England and so planning has […]

7 July 2021

A Night at the Zoo

For my birthday I was given a voucher allowing me to book an overnight stay in either London Zoo or it’s country cousin Whipsnade Zoo. Given that we have both been to London Zoo many times we decided that Whipsnade was the obvious choice as neither had visited before. The overnight experience allows you full entrance to the zoo from opening time on the day […]

21 June 2021

Testing the (sparkling) water.

So it’s been just under two months since I was told to stop drinking alcohol. Two months where the weeks have been spent at work and the weekends have been spent moping at home feeling sorry for myself. At least in recent weeks I have been able to watch on enviously as Jezza starts to ramp up efforts to clear the backlog of potential London […]

19 June 2021

We need to talk about the Elephant, and Bear, in the room.

Anybody that has met me whilst I am out and about will know that I am usually accompanied by my two travelling companions. Humphrey, the elephant, and Hugo, the bear. Yes, I know I am 53! It is thanks to them that I discovered the world of small cuddly creatures on Twitter, leading on to the fact that an awful lot of them love beer […]

15 June 2021

It’s all a matter of timing…

I think I can say, without contradiction, that it has been an ‘interesting’ 18 months for everybody, everywhere. As things stand the light at the end of the tunnel is still flickering, but gradually getting brighter. As the dates loomed for the gradual re-opening of hospitality, and in particular pubs and bars, grew closer the anticipation started to build. After all there was an ever […]

13 June 2021

Why?

OK, so this is a bit of a cheat but I’ll start all of this by repeating my first ever Blog post. It serves as an introduction to those of you that don’t know me. My apologies to those of you that may have read it before. ~ / ~ “Why? Such a small word, such a big question. Why start a blog? I guess […]