My Morecambe

Day Trip to Barrow

Gnasher — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:20:24 +0000

Thanks to Virgin Trains trying to pass the buck for a messed up train journey to First Transpennine, FT passed the buck back to VT and offered some travel vouchers as an apology and they were used today for a trip to Barrow In Furness. Why? The Docks Museum looked interesting and apart from ironing, little else to do (except decorate the lounge and finish the gloss in the bedroom but they can wait for wet weather).

First of all, don’t trust google to find the dock museum. It happily displays it has found the dock museum but following their directions you end up in the middle of the docks surrounded by nothing but BAE buildings and what I believe were flats. So another 20 minutes later I’m at the docks museum.

Quite an unusual museum, the entrance is on the side of what was a dry dock. Going into the museum you cross a walkway onto a steel structure with 3 floors of displays, the other 2 floors beneath you in the old dry dock. The museum structure is in the dry dock leaving the dock walls clearly visible, if you’re in the area it’s well worth a look and there’s an outdoor play area for kids (although some dads seemed to be enjoying it more).

If you visit Barrow on a Sunday in February, the museum is about all you will find open. In the town centre there was Debenhams, Subway, Poundland and the usual gaming and mobile phone shops open. The rest were shut, not even a Greggs open. Just outside the town centre were the usual shops, Morrisons, Tesco, Currys, etc. but if I wanted them I wouldn’t have had to leave Lancaster.

All in all not a bad day out but one I won’t be repeating.

Barrow Photos

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Flickr

Gnasher — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:50:40 +0000

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

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Buzz-ing along and other stuff that bugs me

Gnasher — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:21:00 +0000

Sure enough, Google Buzz finally triggered on my account. Having spent an hour or so playing around with it, I don’t think I like it. It doesn’t show twitter activity as it claims to and it has posted my latest Flickr photo as a message without me going anywhere near it. When I do try to include a photo in a message, there’s none to choose from. I’ll probably try it again at weekend but for now it’s back to using Outlook for Gmail messages.

Phone company 3 – they have been great recently. Since they did some transmitter work before Christmas I haven’t had a mobile signal at home. I reported it, they investigated, came back to me to say they could see why there was a problem and when they couldn’t do anything about it until July, offered to terminate my contract at no cost. Great, I finally had an excuse to get an iPhone which 3 don’t offer on their network. So 3 send me my final bill and to no surprise I am in credit. If I owed them they would be taking it out of my bank account. They owe me and I have to phone them to get my money. Back to the 3 I know so well

And what about that football club crest? A shrimp on a fairly plain background? Great, it will scale up or down and it will look sharp in the embroidered version unlike the old one which often looked smudged. It’s the club’s nickname, it’s what the town is known for and it’s the subject of a royal warrant for Baxters. What else did anyone expect? It’s a shame that someone at the club didn’t realise that registration of the town crest had lapsed and didn’t renew it for the club. They could have made some money selling it back to Evelyn.

Keeping on football, how about Globe Arena? Will everyone be surprised when a globe sculpture turns up at the main entrance? Probably. What a good sponsorship deal though. Who better to sponsor the ground than the builders? With their name plastered all over the stadium and the press, they aren’t likely to do a crap job or be late getting it finished. Nice one MFC.

Rant over, time for an early night and the 0623 from Bare.

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Quick Update 7th Feb 10

Gnasher — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:40:00 +0000

It’s good to be in the house for more than a few minutes, finally got around to deciding about the kitchen and dining room both of which will be trashed in the near future. Nothing wrong with either of them as they stand but I don’t want two rooms. It’s also been Noah’s Christening today, we nearly matched in our suits I mean his christening outfit, not the bib although some would argue that point

My search to find a lager that can’t be improved with fresh lime continues. Even Desperados, why was I introduced to it so late in life, improves with a slice of lime. Fresh lime even makes Tuborg palatable. Sadly I was let down last night by a bottle of Merlot, if I’d had some fish ‘n chips I could have used it instead of vinegar.

I’ve finally got around to re-registering with Flickr. I managed to screw up my yahoo email address which was registered (and paid for) with Flickr, couldn’t remember the details I used to register so couldn’t prove to Yahoo that I was the real owner of the email address. Click here for my Flickr photos.

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Heysham M6 Link

Gnasher — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:54:41 +0000

Yet again the solution to the congestion in Morecambe and Lancaster goes to an enquiry. Various groups complain about the ever rising costs, have they thought that actively campaigning against the road and delaying it is actully the cause of the rising costs? Had it been built when it was first planned we’d have saved a fortune.

It’s a nightmare journey around 8am and 5pm and whatever statistics you throw at us, you only have to do the journey a few times to realise you are queuing behind lines of HGVs heading to the M6 and a third of the cars that get stuck on Greyhound Bridge are heading to the M6. I know this because I sit in it daily, I’m one of the third heading to the M6 with daily commutes across the North West, Yorkshire and Humberside.

It’s no fun when you know that at the end of your 2 hour journey from Sheffield it can take you another 40 minutes to cover the last 5 miles. The relief road would make that 40 minute journey about 8 minutes. Think of the impact on the environment those extra 32 minutes running the engine has. No, I can’t travel by train because that would add at least 2 hours to my journey, time I could spend doing some work.

As for the Northern route being longer, it’s no longer than the route everyone takes now. Very few people drive through Lancaster heading to J33, the vast majority go to J34 to avoid Lancaster city centre and head south on the M6. Look at a map of the route to J34, no longer than the proposed link road.

I’ve heard complaints from people in Torrisholme about the road. I bought a house in the centre of Torrisholme in 1980 and my solicitor talked me through the proposal for the new road which the local search had picked up. A road that had been planned since the early 1960s. It was her duty to point out to me that the road could be within earshot of my house. Knowing that, I still bought the house, my decision. The people that have discussed the road with me have all moved into that area since 1980, all knew about the road yet still bought their houses. Sorry folks, you knew what might be coming.

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Still cold & white

Gnasher — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:57:05 +0000

Nothing like as cold as it has been or as cold as the weather channels say it is elsewhere but I still can’t put a wash on, the machine is in an old fashioned out-house and the water froze in the pipes – T to the rescue.

I managed to get to The Wine Yard last night for a few bottles of Desperado, rather nice with or without fresh lime. I also tried fresh lime in a few cans of lager left over from Christmas, it turns any lager into a decent lager, give it a try.

With the snow slowly clearing, Sunday morning might be the last chance I get to go out with the camera. I headed out of Lancaster starting at the Crook O’Lune with a bacon butty and cup of tea at Woodies, popular with walkers and cyclists. Then to Williamsons Park to watch the kids (of all ages) sledge down the hills, good to see recycling bin lids being put to better use. An abundance of the spade style sledges which looked much faster than the plastic sledges, bin lids, bin bags and home made equipment.

Click here to see the Photos of the Crook O’Lune and Williamsons Park

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White Morecambe

Gnasher — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:37:32 +0000

Having seen the east coast, midlands and south west, Morecambe has got off very lightly with the white weather. It doesn’t mean it’s less white than anywhere else, just not as deep. It’s been cold though, cold enough to freeze salt water but at least the coumcil have used sand off the beaches to help around town.

White Morecambe Photos

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Catch Up Time

Gnasher — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:40:51 +0000

Quite a while since a half decent blog with some personal detail, so what’s been happening? As has become a regular event since the kids were young, Xmas Day with them was on Xmas Eve. Presents handed out, pies just about cooked in the oven before everyone starved but I gave up with the mushy peas, we couldn’t wait any longer.

Xmas Day with T and her family was fairly quiet, T worked a late shift Xmas Day and the early on Boxing Day. However, between shifts we took the Xmas decorations down and replaced them with more than a scattering of 21 banners and baby photos to embarrass the birthday boy.

Before starting a Boxing Day afternoon and evening of drink, I saw my grandson Noah to give him his Xmas presents. There followed a few days retail therapy in preparation for New Years Eve. I lasted until 2am New Years Day with the last going to bed some time after 5. A New Years Day run to Freeport and back to The Shrimp for a disappointing meal, meat was OK but most of the veg was under-cooked. A good idea and none of us had to clean up afterwards but we’ll probably be trying further afield the next time we eat out.

And that’s about it. A last day in Preston looking for curtains and then it’s back to work.

Some recent Photos:

The Visitor – A Week Later

Gnasher — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:02:52 +0000

A week later and still no announcement from Morecambe FC about a stadium deal. If I hadn’t used The Visitor to light the fire on Christmas Day I’d be asking for a refund. Just proves my comments last week, it’s a complete waste of paper. I wonder what will appear this week, if it was so bad last week with no bank holidays between publication dates, how bad is it going to be this week? Fortunately I will never know unless I read someone elses.

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The Visitor – Morecambe’s weekly paper

Gnasher — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:50:51 +0000

Today is the last Visitor I’ll be buying. I’m not a regular reader but today’s headline caught my eye and I fell for it. “Shrimps sign mega £1/4m deal”. With a headline like that, you’d expect a bit of meat on the bone. Well, not with The Visitor. That’s it, MFC are going to sign a deal. Who with? The Visitor can’t say because it’s not been announced yet. The ground’s going to get a new name. What’s the new name? Something else the Visitor doesn’t know.

To make it worse, they use up a full page of potential news to publish one photo of MFC in action at Grimsby. If it was meant to be cut out & kept, maybe they shouldn’t have printed it across 2 pages. A handful of photos, that might not have been as bad but one large photo, ridiculous.

It must be a bad week for local news. There’s only been more snow than Morecambe has had in about 15 years and a local regiment sadly lost a soldier in Afghanistan. Neither get a mention. Today’s paper looks like it was put together a week ago before the few that are left working at The Visitor in Morecambe finished for Xmas. Bye Bye Visitor.

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