Tag: weston-super-mare

Posted on

Marine Lake

Went for a walk this morning and we walked past Marine Lake and Knightstone Island.

It has been drained and hopefully will be cleared of mud and silt making it a better swimming experience. The work requires permission from a government agency, and if approved will be finished by the summer of 2022.

Posted on

Going to the cinema

On Friday night we went to the cinema, after checking we ended up at Cineworld in Weston.

We spent over eight pounds on one portion of popcorn and some pick and mix. I can never understand the cost of cinema food. I understand the economics of it, but I do wonder sometimes if that model is flawed.

We saw The Fast and the Furious 9 which was a fun escapist film. It didn’t take itself too seriously, so neither did we. This is the first of these films I have seen from the franchise, having said that I don’t think you needed to have seen the others to enjoy the film (well except perhaps the post credits clip).

Despite being almost opening night, a Friday night and peak time of 7:40pm the cinema was quite empty. The whole complex looked very sad now that Prezzo, Pizza Express and Loco Mexicana have all closed down. The only places left are Nandos and Costa. How long will it be before Cineworld decides to shut.

Posted on

Then and Now Take Two – Snowing in Weston Village

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart. I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I published back in February some photos of Weston Village in the snow, so when I was there recently I decided to (intentionally) take a similar photograph and add it to the photographs I had taken there before. This time no snow, just some spring sunshine from April 2020.

Weston Village

However the following photographs were intentionally taken from the same location. I have over the years (when we had snow) taken a particular photograph so here is the 2018 version.

This with the wind and the cold was actually some of the worst weather I have seen down here, but as you can see it doesn’t look too bad…

This was how it looked in December 2010. Back then we had very heavy snow.

This was how it looked in eleven months earlier in January 2010,  again heavy snow.

And here it is in February 2009. At this time this was some of the worst weather we had seen in twenty years. This was taken from the other side of the fence.

 

Posted on

Back along walking down the seafront

Living in Weston-super-Mare and not being allowed to travel due to Covid-19 restrictions, we often make use of the seafront for our allowed exercise. It’s not as though we never walked there before, but now with limited choices, and only so many times you can walk around the area where we live, it’s nice to pop to the seafront. Its a short drive to the seafront from where we love and it was easy to park close to the seafront. This time we parked at Knightstone Island and popped some money in the meter.

I think for me one of the big changes over the last twelve months in the various lockdowns is how little I use cash now. Before the pandemic I would use cash for the parking at the station (though to be honest more often than not I would use phone parking). I would use cash for buying coffee or snacks. I would even use cash for larger purchases. However with the pandemic my use of cash declined dramatically as mainly I did less, bought less and moved much more to contactless payment.

It was a beautifully clear day, the sun was shining, and it wasn’t too cold. The tide was well in and even the ferry moored at the side of Knightstone Island was floating, something I don’t think I have ever seen happen before.

Generally we don’t see the sea, as the tidal range in Weston is so huge that for most of the day the sea is some distance away. Today as we walked along the seafront, it was high tide.

We walked all the way along the seafront to the old hospital and back again. When we turned back we had in the wind in our faces and it was hard going walking back and felt much much colder.

But soon we got back to the car and headed home for a coffee.

Posted on

Walking down the seafront

Living in Weston-super-Mare and not being allowed to travel due to Covid-19 restrictions, we often make use of the seafront for our allowed exercise. It’s not as though we never walked there before, but now with limited choices, and only so many times you can walk around the area where we live, it’s nice to pop to the seafront. Its a short drive to the seafront from where we live and it was easy to park close to the seafront.

Today it was beautifully clear day, the sun was shining, and it wasn’t too cold. However it was quite windy.

You could see clearly over to Brean Down and even further across to Cardiff and Newport in Wales.

There were kite surfers making the most of the strong winds and the high tide.

Generally we don’t see the sea, as the tidal range in Weston is so huge that for most of the day the sea is some distance away. Today as we walked along the seafront, it was high tide, combined with the winds there were waves crashing down onto the sand.

We walked all the way along the seafront to Knightstone Island and Marine Lake. 

Then it was time to turn around and head back to the car to drive home.

Posted on

Driftwood

We went for a walk along the seafront.

There was a large amount of driftwood on the beach, including this tree trunk.

No idea where it has drifted from, I did think it might have washed down from the River Severn following the flooding they’ve had recently.

Posted on

Then and Now – Snowing in Weston Village

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.

I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart.  The first instance of this that I noticed was in May 2019 when I went to  Manchester.

However the following photographs were intentionally taken from the same location. I have over the years (when we had snow) taken a particular photograph so here is the 2018 version.

This with the wind and the cold was actually some of the worst weather I have seen down here, but as you can see it doesn’t look too bad…

This was how it looked in December 2010. Back then we had very heavy snow.

This was how it looked in eleven months earlier in January 2010,  again heavy snow.

And here it is in February 2009. At this time this was some of the worst weather we had seen in twenty years. This was taken from the other side of the fence.

 

 

Posted on

It was snowing…

While a lot of the UK was having snow, it did miss us in Weston-super-Mare.

However today it did start to snow and we went out for a walk in the snow.

You can just about see the snow.

Alas it stopped and it has now all melted.

We’ve had some serious snow before as you can see from this photograph from December 2010.

Posted on

My top ten tweets of 2020

Last year I posted my top ten tweets for 2019 and I did the same in 2018, 2017 and 2016 which was interesting to see which tweets of mine were popular.

So the most popular tweet of 2019 was this one about keeping the old Twitter.

Alas the hack didn’t last too long so we have to use the new Twitter.

So in 2020, my tenth most popular tweet was this one, a response to one about signage in the libraries.

The photo was from an April Fool we did at the library in Gloucestershire College. What was interesting was that it didn’t work, no one noticed the new signs or paid them any attention,.

Though it should be said we never had a problem with swimming in the library again.

The ninth most popular tweet of mine was from an event I attended in February on trans national education and I posted a sketchnote.

The tweet at number eight was about the lack of a door in Matt Hancock’s home office.

The seventh most popular tweet was a picture of Buckingham Palace!

It was a response to an original New York Post tweet that has now been deleted. It talked about the UK Christmas covid-19 planning with a picture of Paris.

Number six, was a link to a story about how students realised they could game an assessment as it was been graded by an AI and not a person.

Wasn’t cheating, it was just doing what was required to get top marks.

Fifth most popular tweet was about shopping centre clocks.

Fourth most popular tweet was another tweet in response to that original New York Post tweet that has now been deleted. It talked about the UK Christmas covid-19 planning with a picture of Paris.

Luckily someone managed to get a screengrab.

The third most popular tweet was about The Sovereign Centre shopping centre, which appears to be chasing the title of the UK’s Worst Shopping Centre…

Back in January I misread a tweet from Stephen Fry and that was the most popular tweet at number two.

So my top tweet  of 2020 was me reminiscing when WHSmith in Bristol went all Dexter.