I've been struggling to keep up with my blog and just about everything else for a while but I think I'm finally catching up... so here's a little update on what I've been up to over the last few days or so.Early on Tuesday morning I drove up to the North East of England to visit Newton Aycliffe library. I was a little worried at first because when I arrived at the library all I found was a large pile of rubble. It seemed that the old library had been knocked down that very morning... fortunately, all of the books, computers and librarians had moved out a little while ago and were now housed in a temporary library a short distance away, so all was not lost. I spent and hour or so talking to a group of keen young readers 8+ in the morning and then met a big group of younger readers and book lovers in the afternoon. After the library sessions I drove back down to North Wales and had pizza for tea... Yum!!!
On Wednesday morning I drove to Blackpool with Vicky and Connor, met up with Deanna and then had a great day acting like tourists in town. We had planned to spend the day at Blackpool Tower and the Tower Circus, however, as it was half term the tower was incredibly buy so instead, we walked along the promenade and onto Central Pier where we clambered aboard the big wheel. The wheel has been on the pier for a good few years now but I'd never ridden on it before. Definitely worth a go round if you visit the town. 
After the Big Wheel, we spent a couple of hours in the Waxworks - including the Chamber of Horrors. This is Connor with Del Boy and Rodney (dressed as Batman and Robin from an episode of Only Fools and Horses). There was a whole section of the waxworks set aside for James Bond... I thought this one of Daniel Craig was particularly good. The chamber of horrors was pretty good too as it had a few live actors wandering around to give people the creeps.
We called in a a noodle bar for some lunch, visited my mum and then went to pick Laura up from the Sandcastle Waterpark. We were planning on driving through the illuminations but the traffic was horrendous and it would have taken us hours... so we decided to park the car, get some chips and have a little walk through them. We were all ready with our chips when it started to pour with rain so we made a dash back to the car..... soaking wet. Despite a few changes of plan through out the day we all had a great time.
On Thursday we went to Snugburys, near Nantwich, for some of their delicious ice cream and to have a look at their latest straw sculpture... this year, a giant meerkat. Take a look at their website and you'll see some of the other sculptures they've made.
On Friday I met up with Laura and we drove to Lincoln so that we could visit the university on Saturday morning for their open day. Laura is planning to go to university next year and study graphics... so far, Lincoln looks the best.
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