The Swarm at Thorpe Park

We went to Thorpe Park a few weeks ago, when the weather was still nice and the sun was still high in the sky.  You needed that, if you were planning on riding the water rides. We got thoroughly soaked on Tidal Wave!

When we got to Thorpe Park, Hamish and I promptly joined the queue for The Swarm. It was a 20 minutes queue at that point. The 20 minutes turned into over an hour.  The queue management was the most shambolic of any rides we have been on. For a start, they had 2 rows of seats on the rides turned backward for extra thrill.  The queue for this was much shorter but when you get to the ride, you can go anywhere you want.  So our "going forward" queue was getting slower and slower. Then they decided to hook on another set of rides so they can have 2 going simultaneously.  That took some time, not sure why they didn't do it before they open.  Then the 2 simultaneous were ran more like one after the other.

Enough about the bad queue.  The ride was awesome.  It was very, very fast, very high, twist and turning that I have ever experienced. And over is less than a minute. The ride went very close to some buildings built as prop for the ride but unlike the dummies in the test runs, there were no close calls. We didn't lose limbs. It was extreme but it was very smooth. It was the best ride on a roller coaster for me, ever!

You want to see the layout as evidence, right ?

Ferry to Yarmouth

I always get excited when I go on a ferry, even if it is just a short trip. I think this harks back to those frequent trips from Butterworth to Penang from my childhood. A ride on the ferry always felt like going over-seas!

We went to the IOW in the summer so I had to do a layout of the crossing.

 

I am loving the plastic stars from Studio Calico.  They will be sprinkling their ways into more layouts very soon!

 

 

This layout was done for Sarah's Cards October Sketch Challenge.  Why don't you join us for a chance to win some spending "money" on loads of lovely stash ?

Jamie's Big Feastival in the Cotswold

We went to the Big Feastival at the end of the summer holidays. It was our first festival. The food aspect was the main draw. Did you notice that it is called Feast - ival rather than Fest-ival ?

Camping out in a field with other festival goers proved to be challenging in the evening especially with kids whining, "I am not comfortable" ( for god sake, check into a five star establishment! ) to "I need a wee" and their indulgent parents who thinks it is ok to shout out in the close quarters of tent living. Incidentally, the new born baby and his parents in next door tent hardly made a sound all weekend! So that was the low point. Even the porta-loos weren't bad.

So this is our field.  The tents were quite close, or so I thought until J pointed out that at the V, the tents are much closer. LOL

 

Checking out the grounds on Friday night, we caught a spectacular sun set over the arena.

 

 

Saturday morning and it's officially opened by Jamie Oliver and Alex James ( of Blur ).  The venue was on Alex James' farm.  He is now a farmer and he makes cheese.

 

 

Inspired by the Weber B-B-Q demo, we had to get the chimney starter.

 

 

The festival goers eating, drinking and enjoying the music.

 

Spotted, Jamie Oliver being photographed with a group of singers.

J claimed A's sunglasses as his own, trying out the PIMM's deckchairs.

 

This wheel turned out quite fast.  Wasn't expecting that.  What's more, because it was not busy we had many, many spins.  "When will it end", was constantly on my mind.

 

So I let the boys ride this one out.  Loved snapping away here!

And you know where this is going! I made a layout of our weekend.