Bournemouth!
Aug. 25th, 2008 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
supertinksSo Jamie and I went on holiday this weekend, to Bournemouth.
We didn't have many crazy plans for things to do, just the idea that we might go to Monkey World, and definately were going to Weymouth on the Sunday for the Sea Life Centre.
We didnt go to Monkey World in the end, but we will go at some point because its only a couple of hours down the road.
So what we did do:
We drove down on Friday afternoon - what with the festival, the bank holiday weekend, the rush hour traffic and the road works it took us 2 hours to get there, instead of an hour and a half, but it wasnt so bad. We hit the rush hour around Southampton. We found our hotel with very little effort, and then found a carpark near the hotel also with little effort (thanks to the sat nav!), We checked in, chilled out for ten minutes or so, then headed into town.
We didnt really notice it much on the first walk down to the sea front, but our hotel was in the gay district! There were several gay pubs (one was called Bent [!]), a couple of gay clubs, and round the corner from the car park a fantastic gay sex shop called Clone Zone.
Bournemouth itself is an odd town. It really isnt like Brighton, which is flat all along the beach, and then the cliffs on each side rise quite gently, with the rise up away from the beach inland quite gentle as well. Bournemouth is two enormously steep cliffs with a small valley running down the middle which leads to the pier. There was much walking up and down hills this weekend, which my legs were complaning about by Sunday afternoon! The valley down between the gliffs is landscaped into a garden and its very pretty. There's a stream running through it, and huge grassy areas for kids to play in or for old folks to sit in deckchairs on. There's a bandstand, which actually had a brass band playing in it, which was very cool. A crazy golf course, an aviary, an art exhibition... and the Bournemouth Eye, which is an enormous tethered balloon (very Victorian!) which goes up and down and you get to go in it and see fabulous views.
Friday evening was spend wandering around getting our bearings. We were hugely disappointed with the pier - you had to pay to go down it, and all there was when you went down it was a theatre, a pub/restaurant and a couple of pathetic kids rides and things. Not a patch on Brighton! Even the amusements bit at the beginning was small and pathetic compared to Brighton's pier.
We had dinner in Harry Ramsdens on the seafront, but made the mistake of sitting outside, where it was cold and I didnt have a coat or cardigan or anything. So I got very cold, and no matter where we went after that (which was to find a pub that was warm and sit in it for a while) I couldnt get warm again, so we called it an early night and went back to the hotel to warm up and go to bed.
Saturday we decided not to go to Monkey World, but to explore the town some more. We wandered about lots, chilled out in pubs, I bought a new jacket. We played some crazy golf, and I won (by one hole - it was a closely fought game), but I also got sunburn because we were out in the open and the sun decided to turn itself on. We went to the cinema, and saw Hellboy 2, which wasnt as good as the first one, but was still enjoyable. Best elves I've seen in any fantasy film of late. Much surprise to discover it was Luke Goss!
Saturday evening we then had dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant called Massimo, where we had three absolutely gorgeous courses. It had started raining by then, so we didnt do much after dinner other than take a nice walk along the beach in the dark, where I managed to notice two gentlemen beneath the lifeguard station being rather friendly towards one another! Jamie didnt really see them, so he didnt believe me at first. They were gone by the time we walked back the other way though, so I couldnt prove it to him!
Sunday we got up in a lazy fashion, and drove down to Weymouth, passing a lovely white horse on the way. We found the Sea Life center, and had a wander around. The turtles are always my favourite part of the sea life centres, and there were three loggerheads in Weymouth, two females and a male. They were beautiful. And they have four seals in their sanctuary as well, who were very cool. They know you're there, in the underwater viewing bit, and they come and say hello. They were lovely.
Once we'd finished there, we decided to come home, because poor Mr Fidget was all by himself and he doesnt like it much. So we drove home, took us about two and a half hours from Weymouth. Fidget was over the moon to see us, as soon as I sat down in the living room he jumped up on me and wouldnt move for about an hour and a half. I only moved him in the end because I couldnt feel my legs anymore!
We mostly chilled out on our own last night, having spend every single minute together for two days, it was nice to chill out! Jamie sorted out getting Medieval Total War II Kingdoms to load, while I caught up on missed TV - X-Factor, Maestro, Who Do you Think You Are (you should all go and watch Boris Johnson's one, it'll be on BBC iplayer - its brilliant). I failed to record Last Choir Standing, so I shall watch that on iplayer today.
Then we had dinner (luckily I had some chicken kievs in the freezer!) and played some Medieval total war 2 kingdoms - the Americas campaign.
Then the computer crashed, so we went to bed instead
We didnt go to Monkey World in the end, but we will go at some point because its only a couple of hours down the road.
So what we did do:
We drove down on Friday afternoon - what with the festival, the bank holiday weekend, the rush hour traffic and the road works it took us 2 hours to get there, instead of an hour and a half, but it wasnt so bad. We hit the rush hour around Southampton. We found our hotel with very little effort, and then found a carpark near the hotel also with little effort (thanks to the sat nav!), We checked in, chilled out for ten minutes or so, then headed into town.
We didnt really notice it much on the first walk down to the sea front, but our hotel was in the gay district! There were several gay pubs (one was called Bent [!]), a couple of gay clubs, and round the corner from the car park a fantastic gay sex shop called Clone Zone.
Bournemouth itself is an odd town. It really isnt like Brighton, which is flat all along the beach, and then the cliffs on each side rise quite gently, with the rise up away from the beach inland quite gentle as well. Bournemouth is two enormously steep cliffs with a small valley running down the middle which leads to the pier. There was much walking up and down hills this weekend, which my legs were complaning about by Sunday afternoon! The valley down between the gliffs is landscaped into a garden and its very pretty. There's a stream running through it, and huge grassy areas for kids to play in or for old folks to sit in deckchairs on. There's a bandstand, which actually had a brass band playing in it, which was very cool. A crazy golf course, an aviary, an art exhibition... and the Bournemouth Eye, which is an enormous tethered balloon (very Victorian!) which goes up and down and you get to go in it and see fabulous views.
Friday evening was spend wandering around getting our bearings. We were hugely disappointed with the pier - you had to pay to go down it, and all there was when you went down it was a theatre, a pub/restaurant and a couple of pathetic kids rides and things. Not a patch on Brighton! Even the amusements bit at the beginning was small and pathetic compared to Brighton's pier.
We had dinner in Harry Ramsdens on the seafront, but made the mistake of sitting outside, where it was cold and I didnt have a coat or cardigan or anything. So I got very cold, and no matter where we went after that (which was to find a pub that was warm and sit in it for a while) I couldnt get warm again, so we called it an early night and went back to the hotel to warm up and go to bed.
Saturday we decided not to go to Monkey World, but to explore the town some more. We wandered about lots, chilled out in pubs, I bought a new jacket. We played some crazy golf, and I won (by one hole - it was a closely fought game), but I also got sunburn because we were out in the open and the sun decided to turn itself on. We went to the cinema, and saw Hellboy 2, which wasnt as good as the first one, but was still enjoyable. Best elves I've seen in any fantasy film of late. Much surprise to discover it was Luke Goss!
Saturday evening we then had dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant called Massimo, where we had three absolutely gorgeous courses. It had started raining by then, so we didnt do much after dinner other than take a nice walk along the beach in the dark, where I managed to notice two gentlemen beneath the lifeguard station being rather friendly towards one another! Jamie didnt really see them, so he didnt believe me at first. They were gone by the time we walked back the other way though, so I couldnt prove it to him!
Sunday we got up in a lazy fashion, and drove down to Weymouth, passing a lovely white horse on the way. We found the Sea Life center, and had a wander around. The turtles are always my favourite part of the sea life centres, and there were three loggerheads in Weymouth, two females and a male. They were beautiful. And they have four seals in their sanctuary as well, who were very cool. They know you're there, in the underwater viewing bit, and they come and say hello. They were lovely.
Once we'd finished there, we decided to come home, because poor Mr Fidget was all by himself and he doesnt like it much. So we drove home, took us about two and a half hours from Weymouth. Fidget was over the moon to see us, as soon as I sat down in the living room he jumped up on me and wouldnt move for about an hour and a half. I only moved him in the end because I couldnt feel my legs anymore!
We mostly chilled out on our own last night, having spend every single minute together for two days, it was nice to chill out! Jamie sorted out getting Medieval Total War II Kingdoms to load, while I caught up on missed TV - X-Factor, Maestro, Who Do you Think You Are (you should all go and watch Boris Johnson's one, it'll be on BBC iplayer - its brilliant). I failed to record Last Choir Standing, so I shall watch that on iplayer today.
Then we had dinner (luckily I had some chicken kievs in the freezer!) and played some Medieval total war 2 kingdoms - the Americas campaign.
Then the computer crashed, so we went to bed instead
Photos of Bournemouth are on photobucket, and also on facebook.
