blackpool

Blackpool Zoo

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Asian Small-Clawed Otter

Whilst in Blackpool, we made our fourth visit to Blackpool Zoo in as many years. Although we only visited once when Christine was living there, we’ve visited many of the times that we’ve been back to Blackpool, and yesterday was one of those.

In some respects its one of my favourite zoos. The keepers are very friendly, and it’s a manageable size – not huge, but enough to see to occupy a full day. We got there at 10am when it opened, and were still there at nearly 4pm. There are plenty of demonstrations to see and over the years we’ve seen most of them.

The sealions are always worth seeing as the keepers actually swim in the water with them. They have been taught to do tricks, but this partly because they can also be taught to lie still, or raise flippers, when they need to do medical inspections. They do the same with some of their birds, including a macaw who was able to place blocks in the right sized holes and open three nested metal tins to get food, during a demonstration.

Me and a barn owl

A new feature for this year is bird of prey experiences. These cost £10 per head over and above the entry price (which is currently £16 for adults), and allow you to hold and do some basic falconry with a barn owl. Christine and I both did this, and I have the claw marks on my arm to prove it! It’s good fun, especially if you like owls, and the trainer is very friendly and patient. Plus, it means I get an interesting new Facebook and Twitter avatar.

We still have a few friends in Blackpool so I’m sure we’ll end up back at the zoo again at some point. Later this year a new orang-utan house opens, and their female amur tiger has recently had cubs. They’re not currently on display but hopefully will be there for all to see in a few weeks’ time. Amur (also known as Siberian) tigers are endangered so this is an important development.

Naturally, I took quite a few photos whilst we were there. The two above, and eighteen others, are in this Flickr set album.

A quick Blackpool visit

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The tower

This weekend we took a very brief trip to Blackpool, to visit friends. Christine, if you’ll remember, used to live there and still has a few ties with the place. It’s the first time we’ve been in about eighteen months.

Blackpool has a reputation for being rather downmarket these days. Gone are the times when huge excursion trains deposited thousands of holidaymakers into (the now demolished) Blackpool Central station by the tower. Whilst it’s still a popular seaside resort, at weekends it’s hard to avoid the legions of stag and hen parties, and it has a reputation of being rather tacky. The tourist attractions tend to cater for the mass market, so there aren’t many museums or art galleries for the more discerning visitor.

The local council is acutely aware of this and is trying hard to tidy up the town. The sea wall was rebuilt several years ago, and Blackpool’s heritage tram system has been upgraded, with new, modern trams running between the Pleasure Beach and the northern town of Fleetwood. And there has been much work done on the public realm: shopping streets have been pedestrianised with nice paving.

In particular, the area around the town’s main surviving railway station, Blackpool North, has been transformed since we last came with new buildings and paving. Indeed the club where Christine and I had our first kiss, The Tache, has been demolished and replaced by a Sainsbury’s which opens in a couple of weeks (the club has now moved into the town centre thankfully).

The problem is that the council is limited in what it can do with privately-owned buildings. Many of the shops that make up the town’s streets are in a bad way – thrown up in the 1950s and 1960s with little architectural merit. Blackpool does have some lovely Victorian buildings, such as its theatres and old post office, but they’re almost drowned out by badly-maintained low rise buildings and out-of-keeping uPVC windows to keep out Blackpool’s notorious strong winds.

It’s a shame because it’s clear that the council are trying so hard to turn the town around. But with the economy still in a fragile state following the recession, there’s little incentive for private landlords to invest in their estate. Not only are there shops that have seen better days, but better tenants too, with many vacant or with short-term leases. I was surprised and a little saddened by how many ‘to let’ signs there were.

I like Blackpool and think it could still clean up its act. But only if everyone in the town gets behind the cause and does their bit to tidy up. Then it could reclaim its place as the seaside destination of years gone by.

Blackpool Zoo

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Ring-tailed Lemurs

Happy new year everyone!

I spent the new year with Christine in Blackpool and on Sunday went to Blackpool Zoo. It’s open 364 days a year (seeing as the animals there need caring for all year round) and is nice and quiet outside of the busy summer tourist season. The weather on Sunday was bright and sunny (if bitterly cold) so it made an ideal day to go, and to give credit to the zoo staff the educational talks during feeding times were still going ahead despite there being probably no more than 50 people in the park all day.

Naturally I took my camera and 40 out of the 100 photos I took are on Flickr. The above picture of the ring-tailed lemurs is probably my favourite, but I was also impressed with this picture of a red panda (or firefox) and this pair of magellanic penguins.

Having done the Sea Life Centre before Christmas (which has a £5 discount per adult out of tourist season), the next big Blackpool attraction on my list is the Blackpool Tower. I’m sure I’ll get chance to do that soon.

Tumbleweed

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Looks like I’ve been a bad blogger and not posted here for a while. Oops.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

  • The slightly cryptic last sentence in my Blackpool post last month refers to the fact that my new girlfriend lives in Blackpool. Her name is Christine (that’s her actual first name, not a pseudonym), we’ve been seeing each other for about 6 weeks and I’ll probably say more about her as time goes on. It’s a distance relationship but we’ve managed to make time to see each other most weekends.
  • In October I went to see Ash when they played a gig at Bradford Gasworks. They were awesome. They’re also releasing a new single every 2 weeks over the next 12 months, the first 3 of which are out. You can buy all 26 for £11 which isn’t bad.
  • I’ve recently bought some noise-cancelling headphones, which actually do seem to work – my walk to work on a morning is now quite tranquil as I don’t have the noise of cars and the rain in the background, and can instead have my iPod at a lower volume. I only bought a relatively cheap Philips unit for £20 – the sound-cancelling unit is almost as big as my iPod nano – and bar some minor sound distortion they’re good for outdoor use.
  • I visited Halifax on Saturday – another local place that I’ve never really been to before. The Piece Hall is well-worth a visit for the small, independent shops. The rest of the town is nice but mostly full of typical high-street shops, so not worth spending much time visiting. And I’m a bit old for Eureka!, even if it is made of wall-to-wall awesomeness.
  • Firefox 3.6 Beta 3 is out. It’s noticably quicker than 3.5, although on my Mac it fails to start if Nightly Tester Tools is enabled. So right now I’m running with barely any extensions enabled.

Blackpool

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The tower

I’ve spent the past two weekends in Blackpool. Here’s one photo of the illuminations along the promenade. The full set is here.

Despite the fact I’ve always lived in the north of England, until now I had never visited Blackpool. I still have a lot to see as both trips were just flying visits. However, hopefully, I will be going back there quite a bit in the coming months.