Evening all!! I hope you’ve had a great week! I’m sure as
hell looking forward to this weekend! Tomorrow I’ll be visiting Hampton Court
Palace with mum and I’m excited, I’ve wanted to go for a little while now.
My weekend plans aside, I have come back to share part 2 of ‘A
Mulie Trip to Blackpool’. However, before I get cracking with day 3 where we
left off, there’s something about day 2 I forgot to mention. Me and Matthew
went to visit the Blackpool Tower Dungeon and it’s Halloween themed scary walk
through history. When we got to the tower, it was clear to me that there were
remarkable similarities with London here: there was a Tower Eye and a dungeon,
both of which seemed to adopt the same aspects from the London attractions. I’ll
get to the Tower Eye later but for now I’ll focus on the dungeon. This
similarity between Blackpool and London, I’m afraid to say, turned out to be
true for the actual experience itself in the dungeon. Me and Matthew had been
to the London Dungeon in June this year, as I’m sure you read in my ‘Week of
June-ness’ series, and we quite enjoyed that and found ourselves surprised to
have enjoyed it so much due to it being such a mainstream touristy hotspot. We
in fact went to the Blackpool Tower Dungeon based on the familiar enjoyment
from our London experience but whilst going around the Blackpool Dungeon, we
found that, while it was fun and the characterisations were good, we got an “already
done this” feeling which dampened the whole thing a bit. We knew too much of
what to expect which, as you can imagine, took the thrill away from it. So to
conclude, if you’ve already been to the London Dungeon, the Blackpool version
probably won’t provide as many wow’s as you might expect, although the story
was different and the tour explored different characters, so it would still be
interesting to explore if you were inclined to do so.
Now then, with the dungeon done, it is time to delve back into
day 3 of the Mulie adventures around Blackpool.
Day 3:
Today we’d arranged to head back to the promenade and
explore the Ripley’s Believe It or Not that we’d passed the day before. I
remember going into one of these places before, I think during my time in the
US with mum, but I was still looking forward to seeing what was in the
Blackpool branch (for want of a better word). From fertility statues, which I
was sternly told not to touch, to a statue of the tallest man ever recorded,
walking round proved to be quite interesting and there’s bits to see and
interact with all over the place, not to mention new quirky facts to learn
along the way. It’s well worth a visit and it’s right next to the Pleasure
Beach too so you can duck in there after your pleasurable time at the pleasure
beach! (see what I did there…)
After our jaunt round Ripley’s, it was time to grab some
lunch then head back over to the tower for our next Blackpool Tower experience;
the circus! I’d been to a Chinese State Circus before and I liked that amazing
show of flexibility and talent so I figured this should be no different. The
last time Matthew had been to the circus, there were still animals in the shows!
With that in mind I didn’t think the Blackpool circus would quite offer that
level of spectacle, but still, it’d be an entertaining experience nonetheless.
It was soon 30 minutes from show time and what me and Matthew observed next was
something that amused us no end. The performers came out with all the flashing
merchandise you could think of! And not just that, they were offering lessons
on plate spinning and face painting. Now this all seems lovely and yes, as a kiddie
trap it worked pretty damn well indeed, but we couldn’t help but laugh at the
hilarious way they were trying to sell their wares. Take the plate spinning as
the first example, you had to buy the plate for £4 then it would be another £1
for the lesson to spin it! Talk about extortionate! As for the glowy flashy
shite, £6 each!! I’m sorry but if my kid was begging for some flashing plastic
crap they’ll use for 10 minutes and get bored with, I wouldn’t oblige. That’s
probably easier said than done but c’mon, £6?! Even after watching all the kids
flock like flies to shit to the flashy stuff, the highlight wasn’t to come
until the last orders. “Look we even have colour changing Star Wars!” Del Boy
in the centre of the stage said holding up a glowing light sabre toy, “Come and
get your colour changing Star Wars!” This of course had Matthew in stitches and
then for the rest of the day we were proclaiming to “come and get your colour
changing [noun] here!” We are easily amused as you might be able to tell.
Thankfully the flash sale was over and the show begun. We
were first introduced to the comedic clown duo of Mr Boo and Mooky who did
quite well to warm up the crowd with tons of topical puns and one-liners. There
was something for everyone in their double act and their banter provided the
back bone to the rest of the shows eclectic mix of acts from around the world.
There were so many acts that it’s hard to remember them all by name but the
variety and the skill displayed left much of the audience’s mouths gaping open
and watching intently hoping they landed all their acrobatic moves safely (and it
was quite close at times!!) The finale was the real surprise though; the floor
dropped down and water poured in making the stage in a circular pool. Horse
statues were wheeled onto the stage and the performers took their places on the
equipment ready to start.
 |
| The final act from the Blackpool Circus performers |
With a 10-minute routine, the water wonderment was
unfortunately over and with that, so was the show. It seemed a lot of effort to
have gone through for just a 10-minute routine but nevertheless, it was an
overall entertaining 2 hours that I was glad to have watched.
That concluded our day out and after that we headed back to
the van and had dinner while watching that day’s GMM. As we’d enjoyed the illuminations
so much the night before, we decided to go and have a second look and drive
down this huge light show.
Day 4:
Now, today was the day that Matthew would look back on and say
was the best day of the whole holiday. Today, we decided to go to the Blackpool
Model Village, then have lunch in the Toby Carvery which was about 5 minutes
from our caravan site, and then head into Blackpool for a look around Blackpool
from the top of the Blackpool tower. As it was our last full day in Blackpool,
we thought we would spend the evening taking one last tour of the
illuminations.
So, first up was Blackpool Model Village. I remember going
here with mum ages ago when we both holidayed in Blackpool together. I had high
hopes to do a stop motion mini film for my A-Level project at college and I
managed to get a lot of pictures and footage however that project didn’t go
ahead and I was left doing something different. Anyway, I digress, me and
Matthew arrived at what we thought would be quite a nice morning strolling
around looking at the cute mini villages and landscapes of the model village, however
after paying, this ordinary morning turned into an extraordinary morning.
Matthew obviously got in at a disabled concession rate and I was able to get in
on the same rate being his carer. The guy that sold us our tickets then asked
Matthew if he would be alright walking around the site and after a brief
discussion, Matthew was offered an electric wheelchair for his model village
experience. Wondering about his ability to walk all the way round the site,
coupled with the intrigue of the offered chair, he accepted the offer and soon
enough we were on our way round with our map/quiz in tow. I was in charge of
the quiz questions and the directions and Matthew….well Matthew was relishing
being in charge of his chair. He’d never been in one before so he was in his
element making reversing noises after he’d got himself caught on a corner and
finding he had to do a three-point-turn. Despite these manoeuvring hiccups, the
big smile could not be wiped off this man’s face. He was in his element and
nothing was going to rain on his parade. The further into the village we got,
the more excited he got as he became one with the chair. I thought he was going
to name it at one point; man and machine working in harmony. I of course was
walking behind him wetting myself laughing as he was starting to take this
whole electric wheelchair experience too seriously.
 |
| Matthew beaming aboard his new found toy |
This was until the machine started to flag. The chair was obviously
not charged up right to 100% so about half way round, Matthew started to get
slower and slower with the chair starting to falter at the tiny bridges it came
across. Matthew’s smile slowly began to fade along with the chair’s battery
until eventually the chair ground to a halt. Desperation was the first reflex for
Matthew as he tried desperately to get the chair working again but to no avail.
I of course being the dutiful carer I am, stood back and watched as he tried to
get the last bit of juice from this thing. I eventually had to push it to get
it to submit to command and soon it was time for Matthew to face the cold harsh
reality straight in the face: the magic had faded. His face was one of a little
boy who’s just discovered Santa isn’t real (Santa of course is real kids, don’t
stop believing!) and I had to give him some brief counselling as we finished
off our tour of the village.
 |
| The model village being all cute |
Overall, our experience at the model village was a pleasant
one; the staff are polite and willing to help to whatever capacity they can and
the models are interesting to see and discover. We were able to win stickers
for completing the quiz and my name went into a draw to win a prize too so if
you’re in the area, a visit is recommended.
Now onto Toby Carvery. We’d passed it every day so far on
our holiday and we’d both remarked on how empty it looked but I thought maybe
because it’s so exclusive, maybe people didn’t go..? (I know, I know) A long
story short here, we were very disappointed. We would not recommend going to
this chain of Toby Carvery. The staff was sparse and they didn’t seem to know
their arse from their elbow, meaning that one group of customers were left to
seat themselves! As for the food, it was terrible. The roast was okish but the meat
was a little dry but the starters, oh boy the starters we’re not worth waiting
half hour for. We’d in fact finished our roasts by the time the starters came
out so we regretted it in every sense. The cheese bites were not great
according to Matthew and he said they barely tasted of cheese. Even I tried one
and I don’t like cheese- it tasted and had the texture of a mini cheddar. Of
course, I love mini cheddars but for cheese bites, they were pretty bad. As for
the pomegranate glazed ribs, I would be shocked if a pomegranate had even been
waved in the direction of these ribs! They were so dry. We soon paid up and got
out of that depressing place!
The Blackpool Eye next and I was both excited and nervous
for this experience. I’d not been to the top of the tower before so was a bit dubious
as to what would meet me there.
 |
| The view from up at the Blackpool Eye |
The actual experience wasn’t that frightening
or scary at all and I actually quite enjoyed looking out at Blackpool and the
surrounding countryside. We even spotted Matthew’s car sat down in the car
park. There was a glass floored section which Matthew was brave enough to
venture onto but despite him trying to coax me on, I wasn’t having any of it.
Heights aren’t my strongest suit anyway, so stepping onto something that would
remind me of the fact I was god-knows how many metre’s up with seemingly
nothing underneath me to catch me if I fell wasn’t my idea of a great time. I
do slightly regret that now but I’ll probably go back to Blackpool again so I’ll
make it my mission to conquer that fear.
Our last day was coming to an end and we went back to the
caravan for dinner and to get ready for our last jaunt out in the
illuminations. The Apprentice had started the previous day but we soon found
that we couldn’t watch it on catch up as we lacked signal. Our next tactic was
to download it, however we needed WiFi. For WiFi we said we would go to the
on-site pub so I could download the Apprentice to watch when we got back to the
caravan. We headed to the pub, had to argue for our entry to the pub (we didn’t
have entertainment passes so access for us was apparently denied- even to the
pub), spent 20 minutes waiting for the programme to download. Download done, we
headed out to the lights.
We did our usual route down the light show and were going to
go back to the van when we saw an illuminated tram that had passed us by on our
first night exploring the Blackpool promenade. Matthew suggested we should have
a journey down the promenade in one of these trams just so we can see all of
the lights in the most Blackpool-esque way possible. A great idea and soon we
were heading over to the tram (we had to first track down an ATM as we didn’t have
cash) and on our way down the Blackpool promenade.
 |
| Our vessel for viewing the Blackpool illuminations |
Soon though, we’d gone past the point that we’d stopped on a
previous night and from this point all the lights on from this were new to us.
It was at this point that we realised how silly we had been. We’d almost gone
the whole holiday having missed the whole other half of the spectacle- and this
new side was so good too! Basil Brush, Alice in Wonderland, and even the Lord
himself were immortalised in lights and this was just to name a few things! I
was so glad we’d decided to get the tram now as we were seeing parts of the
promenade down towards Fleetwood that we’d never have seen otherwise.
After our very colourful last ride through the illuminations,
it was time to go back to our caravan and prepare ourselves to go back to
normality the next day.
Day 5:
Our leaving day. Matthew treated himself to a £1.70 car wash
that he’d seen advertised throughout our holiday. This was the first time he’d
put himself and indeed his car through a car wash so the sensation of no
control was very alien to him. I will say however his wheels came up a treat!
So, if you want wheels that you can eat your dinner off, then get yourself over
to “Arc” car wash on Preston New Road, Blackpool!
After this we headed to Ikea in Warrington. Matthew wanted
to hunt down a couple of bits for his latest kitchen cupboards and drawers
project, plus it’d be a long time since we’d sampled their famous meatballs so
it seemed like the logical choice. We ended up spending hours in there. You
seem to lose even the concept of time in Ikea but we had a good time in there
regardless. We got back to Oxford at about 7-ish that evening and it seemed no
sooner it had all started, it had ended.
The Saturday was mine and Matthew’s second anniversary so we
had ourselves a date night; Blade Runner 2049, KFC for dinner and G&D’s for
pudding. It seems like longer than two years to be honest, in a good way of
course. We’ve done so much together and he’s helped me discover and take up so
many new things but most importantly, he’s my confidant and best friend. We
make a great team. Long may Mulie reign!
So, that’s it. Part 2 of ‘A Mulie Trip to Blackpool’. It was
a bit longer than part 1- apologies!- but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading all
about our adventures and maybe you’ve now got some ideas on where to go on your
next holiday to Blackpool! I’ll see you all again next week, have a great
weekend guys 😊
Share your thoughts :