Busy, Busy, Busy !!!
Going through various holiday dates at work today made me realise how we're nearly at the end of the year !!! October has passed by in a blur and November looks like doing the same, but it's usually the calm before the December storm.
Last weekend, F & I spent a weekend at home for the first time in a month and had to catch up on 3 weeks worth of Great British Bake Off, a couple of weeks of Corrie and sundy other house buying shows that I love. The previous three weekends had all been packed out - the first was Blackpool with the lovely Harry and Paul. H & P usually come for switch-on in September but were in New York that week (how dare they ??!!). Not to have them miss out, we took them to a new innovation at our end of the Illuminations, a mini-switch on that takes place for prize draw winners every Saturday !!
The weekend after that was Cheltenham Literary Festival time. It actually started the weekend of H&P's Blackpool visit so we had to sacrifice a few talks that weekend including Benedict Cumberbatch. However we did see (and meet) Clare Balding, Jeremy Vine, Paul O'Grady and David Walliams. The weekend was rounded off by a talk on the excellent Olympics spoof documentary Twenty Twelve which is Francis' current (well, it's actually finished) favourite programme (after Corrie and Downton!!).
Following that weekend we were in Manchester for my friend Toni's 40th birthday - she was actually 40 in September but had had a fabulous holiday in Hawaii and Canada so celebrations were delayed until October. It was great to meet up with the girls again (Toni being one of my university friends) and we had a lovely Chinese meal (with line of the weekend from Lisa who said "It feels too Chinesey for me" !!) and then a 3 hour private karaoke session. The next day, by an amazing coincidence, Miranda Hart was doing a book signing in Manchester's Trafford Centre. It was to take place at 3.30pm and we went there at about 12 just to check things out - however, there was already a queue of 200 people which we were forced to join so we didn't miss out. Lucky we did as at 1pm the queue was closed at 400 people !! The bizarre thing was that the crowd was predominantely made up of teenage girls and not gay men or single 30-somethings who I thought were Mirand's target audience !! These girls were bessotted with her - loads had made homemade Miranda t-shirts and when she appeared the scream that went up was like that for a boyband !!
Yesterday we popped down to Malvern to see Haunting Julia - unusual for us to go to the theatre on a Monday but we had met one of the producers of the play, the actress Tracey Childs, a number of times at Doctor Who conventions. We had been badgering her to come to these events with full details of her shows and she did so in May and said she'd be at the first night in Malvern. Well, as it turned out she was busy filming, but the director and co-producer was there who turned out to be Andrew Hall who played one of Geoffrey Palmer's sons in Butterflies and also recently had a stint in Coronation Street. So he was nabbed for the autograph/photo combo !
We've a few shows coming up in November at Malvern - Driving Miss Daisy, The Ladykillers, The Mousetrap and One Man, Two Guvnors in Blackpool. Luckily this year we've only committed to one panto - last year we did 5 !!
At the end of this month is my 40th birthday bash of which preparations continue apace - all the guests are confirmed and final meetings are taking place soon for food etc. Then, it's Christmas !!
I've already had to start thinking well into 2013 as we take our holiday to Scotland in February and need to book train tickets around 12 weeks in advance to get the best deals, which takes us to, well now !!
Last weekend, F & I spent a weekend at home for the first time in a month and had to catch up on 3 weeks worth of Great British Bake Off, a couple of weeks of Corrie and sundy other house buying shows that I love. The previous three weekends had all been packed out - the first was Blackpool with the lovely Harry and Paul. H & P usually come for switch-on in September but were in New York that week (how dare they ??!!). Not to have them miss out, we took them to a new innovation at our end of the Illuminations, a mini-switch on that takes place for prize draw winners every Saturday !!
The weekend after that was Cheltenham Literary Festival time. It actually started the weekend of H&P's Blackpool visit so we had to sacrifice a few talks that weekend including Benedict Cumberbatch. However we did see (and meet) Clare Balding, Jeremy Vine, Paul O'Grady and David Walliams. The weekend was rounded off by a talk on the excellent Olympics spoof documentary Twenty Twelve which is Francis' current (well, it's actually finished) favourite programme (after Corrie and Downton!!).
Following that weekend we were in Manchester for my friend Toni's 40th birthday - she was actually 40 in September but had had a fabulous holiday in Hawaii and Canada so celebrations were delayed until October. It was great to meet up with the girls again (Toni being one of my university friends) and we had a lovely Chinese meal (with line of the weekend from Lisa who said "It feels too Chinesey for me" !!) and then a 3 hour private karaoke session. The next day, by an amazing coincidence, Miranda Hart was doing a book signing in Manchester's Trafford Centre. It was to take place at 3.30pm and we went there at about 12 just to check things out - however, there was already a queue of 200 people which we were forced to join so we didn't miss out. Lucky we did as at 1pm the queue was closed at 400 people !! The bizarre thing was that the crowd was predominantely made up of teenage girls and not gay men or single 30-somethings who I thought were Mirand's target audience !! These girls were bessotted with her - loads had made homemade Miranda t-shirts and when she appeared the scream that went up was like that for a boyband !!
Yesterday we popped down to Malvern to see Haunting Julia - unusual for us to go to the theatre on a Monday but we had met one of the producers of the play, the actress Tracey Childs, a number of times at Doctor Who conventions. We had been badgering her to come to these events with full details of her shows and she did so in May and said she'd be at the first night in Malvern. Well, as it turned out she was busy filming, but the director and co-producer was there who turned out to be Andrew Hall who played one of Geoffrey Palmer's sons in Butterflies and also recently had a stint in Coronation Street. So he was nabbed for the autograph/photo combo !
We've a few shows coming up in November at Malvern - Driving Miss Daisy, The Ladykillers, The Mousetrap and One Man, Two Guvnors in Blackpool. Luckily this year we've only committed to one panto - last year we did 5 !!
At the end of this month is my 40th birthday bash of which preparations continue apace - all the guests are confirmed and final meetings are taking place soon for food etc. Then, it's Christmas !!
I've already had to start thinking well into 2013 as we take our holiday to Scotland in February and need to book train tickets around 12 weeks in advance to get the best deals, which takes us to, well now !!