Started the week with a cheeky little gig at The Fleece. Looking back with hindsight, this is where it probably all started to go wrong. (spoiler, pretty sure I caught COVID here). I hate this venue; like, it’s just awful. It’s small, they are so slow to get people through the door, and it’s always too busy. The floor is hard, uneven stone, which with my knee still in recovery, is hard work and don’t get me started on the pillars. Yeah, I know they are structural, but unless you are smack bang in the middle, odds are you aren’t seeing the performer on stage. Anyways, despite all the above, I had a good night. We saw Twinnie and Tennille Townes, who are both country artists. This is my 3rd or 4th time seeing Twinnie but first Tennille, and wow. That girl can sing.
We finally managed a cheeky little trip to Weston this week to visit SEEMONSTER. We had gone a few weeks ago to the drone launch show. It uses the term launch loosely there as it didn’t open for several weeks afterwards in October despite intentions to have it open for the summer holidays. It’s a whole thing that I’m not going to go into, but yeah. It’s a bit of a sh!tshow.
SEEMONSTER is a disused oil rig placed on the beach in Weston-super-Mare, and they have turned it into a temporary art installation. It supposedly has an overall message, but I didn’t get it. It’s impressive, nonetheless. We had to queue for about 20 minutes which for a sunny day was pretty low. I had seen at some points during weekends it reached 2 hours wait.
You walk around this impressive structure but can also go up on it. Wear sensible shoes for this, and don’t even attempt if you have any form of vertigo. It’s high. Really, really high. Deceptively high. I fear heights, but I’m determined never to let this stop me from doing anything. I found it challenging. I had to hold onto the handrails the entire time and go slow. I couldn’t stay up long; however, I’m glad I did it. There are a few things on the installation to see, like gardens and information, yet the best thing, in my opinion, was the slide. The slide was intense with a super sharp corner but great fun, made more fun by the staff operating it. The one thing I would be critical of were the ‘clouds’. Yeah, impressive, but they soaked the steel stairs and made it feel like a death trap. Not sure how that passed inspection. We finished our day at the seaside with chips and ice cream in the sunshine before getting the train back home. I always forget how easy it is to get to Weston on public transport.
This week was also hairdresser day. We have a great hairdresser who stays open late; whenever we are there, it’s only my husband and me. He puts the dye on my hair, and he cuts my husband’s hair while the colour develops. It works perfectly for us. It’s usually a non-eventful time, but our walk home was interesting. We got down one street and saw loads of cars, unusual for that time of night as it’s a very office-based area. Then we saw the smoke. There’s a famous old, abandoned hotel in Bristol outside the train station, and it was on fire. I have never seen anything like it before. We soon realised that what we thought was rain was actual fire hose water (we were pretty far away), and we were slowly being covered in a little ash shower. After snapping a quick photo, we headed home and let the firefighters do their job.
The rest of the week was spent packing in preparation for the weekend. We got the train to London on Saturday and checked in early to our hotel before heading off to WB Studio Tours early, thinking we could grab some food on the way. Oh. If only we knew the hell we were due to experience, but thankful we set off early. This time, we stayed in a new hotel, the Premier Inn at Paddington Basin, which was great. The train station location is useful; there are so many little restaurants and cafes along the canal.
Anyways, the travel to WB Studio Tours…we arrived at Euston, and we knew it might be busier because of a train strike, but we hadn’t counted on signal failures, which meant no trains were running. The train from here to Watford, where the Tour is located, typically takes about 18 minutes. We ended up getting an overground train that took over 40 minutes and was PACKED. Somehow I managed to get the last seat on the train which I was so grateful for as I was starting to feel a bit ill at this point. I put it down to the heat on the train and the stress of the journey. Little did I realise that it was probably the start of COVID.
Once we got to the Tour, we arrived at our allocated time, so we got something from the cafe halfway around the Tour. Please do not make our mistakes. The food was expensive and awful. I got the chicken burger, and it had no flavour. It was heavily processed, and even the crumb it was in wasn’t flavoured. Thankfully the butterbeer redeemed the experience.
The Tour is so much fun. There’s so much new stuff being added every year. I wanted to go and see the Gringotts set and the dragon, but more so, I have always wanted to experience the Dark Arts event they put on around Halloween. The sets are unique, they had extra items out, especially for the event, but the highlight was for sure the roaming death eaters. We lucked out and managed to be at one of the stages as their show started (near the entrance to the Forbidden Forest). They do a whole dance thing and then stop for about 3 minutes for photos. We saw them from a distance later on while on Platform 9 ¾, which looked like they did the same thing. The highlight is always the fantastic scaled Hogwarts model at the end. Trains again were a nightmare back into London. We got the overground again and switched onto the Bakerloo line after a few stops, which took us straight to the hotel, so pretty easy. We ate tea at the Pizza Express in Paddington Basin, which was appalling. We asked for water three times, including with the manager, before it was provided. After the main course, we sat with empty glasses and plates for over 20 minutes before getting someone’s attention. I could understand if the restaurant was busy or understaffed, but it was quiet, and many staff stood talking to each other. We had an early night ready for the big Disney travel day on Sunday.
Thankfully this went a lot smoother than the previous days’ trains. When we got to St Pancras, it initially looked like chaos. The queue was enormous, but the staff were terrific at prioritising trains, and the line moved pretty quickly. We didn’t have any time to relax in the departure area, but that’s fine because there’s never enough seating. This was our first time doing the change at Lille onto the TGV, and I was a bit anxious; however, it was so easy. The direct train is always my preferred method of travel, but it had sold out and from next year won’t even be an option, unfortunately. We did the Disney Express check-in at the train station, and although an additional cost, it was worth it. You can drop off your bags and get given your park tickets so you can go straight through to the park and make the most of your day. We headed straight into the new Avengers Campus and were immediately greeted by Captain America. It’s an impressive area. We managed a few rides this night as well. We got on Flight Force, Web Slingers, RC Racer and Slinky Dog before we headed to Disneyland Park to see the new Halloween nighttime show. It was good, not excellent. I’m glad I have seen it, though. Unfortunately, the drone show got cancelled, so we decided to beat the crowds back to the hotel to get our luggage and sleep as we were both still feeling a bit sicky.
