The Balloon and a Chanal Four TV Program

I've just been for a walk along the sea front here in Torquay as I did yesterday. I took one of these photos on yesterday's walk and the other today. In between taking these two walks and photos Torquay and the whole of the South West had been battered by gale force winds and heavy rain. The weather and the view have both improved. As you can see the Balloon didn't make it through the night. The 3rd photo below shows the balloon as it is now and is a nice photo with the rainbow.

The balloon will have been insured against this sort of thing so I imagine it will be only a matter of time before it is up and floating once again. I expect the people who work at the site will be hoping for it's speedy return even if lots of Torquayians aren't.

While I was at the crash site taking photos a couple of visitors, a man and his wife, Paul and Chris from Coventry also stopped to take some photos and we got talking. Paul and Chris are staying at the Grosvenor Hotel in Belgrave Rd. In case you missed it The Grosvenor Hotel is the star in a Channel 4 fly on the wall documentary ( described elsewhere as a comedy documentary). The first part was on New Year's Day ( available still on iPlayer) and has upset some people who think it does Torquay down by reminding everyone who saw it of a certain hotel in Torquay run by Basil Fawlty and his almost as mad wife Cybil. I have worked in the hotel industry(briefly) and thought the whole thing hilarious and fairly true to life. The program did start by describing Torquay and said," Torquay had many attractions to entice the visitors and many fine hotels." ......... dramatic pause , "And this hotel"
People here in Torquay seem to think it did Torquay down but personally I think the person it did down was one of the two people getting married in the hotel. It was her big day and she made sure everyone knew it.
Anyway, Paul and Chris from Coventry who I mentioned a while back both love the hotel, good food, nice rooms, friendly, helpful staff and handy for Torquay and all it's varied attractions as well as the X46 for a trip to Exeter.

So don't belive everything you see on the telly is the absolute truth,....... dramatic pause, or even anything like it.

New Year's Day 2012

So Manchester United decide to ruin their supporters New Year's eve by losing to bottom club Blackburn giving arch rivals Manchester City the chance to go 3 points clear by beating Sunderland on New Years Day. So what did Man City do? They remembered that very old song," Anything you can do, we can do better"' and lost one nil in the dying seconds of the game.
Don't they know in Manchester that football is a serious business.
On New Year's Eve I posted a little reminder on my twitter site telling anyone going home that the street lights in the minor roads go out at 12:30 and to take a torch if they were walking home from the fireworks so they didn't bump into anything on the way home. A couple of kind people retweeted my tweet so hundreds would have read it. Anyway at 12:45 when I went to bed the street lights were still on, giving everyone the impression I am a bit of a div. Torbay Council must have altered the switch off time some how just to annoy me. Thanks very much Torbay. The lights were out by 3:00am when I got up to go to the loo. Seriously though; well done the council for keeping the lights burning so everyone could get home safely. A rare example of our council actually doing something.
From the local paper“DEMOLITON experts have completed work at the fire-ravaged Conway Court Hotel.
Nick Gambles, director at Gilpin Demolition of Heathfield, said the project was one of the most challenging he had dealt with.”
I personally think Gilpin Demolition did a great job under difficult conditions to pull the building down and get Torbay Rd open as quickly as they did. A good example to our wonderful council who normally don’t seem to be able to do anything quickly.

There is a Met Office warning of high winds here in the South West for Tuesday morning so if you are thinking of going for a stroll across Dartmoor it might be a good idea to stay in and have a nice cup of coffee instead.
And finally a photo of Union Street on New Year's Day.

Still Coach Driving

Thanks for the supportive comments, I have got used to the idea of continued coach driving. Sometimes it can be a bit of a drag, like sitting in a coach park somewhere waiting until it is time to pick the guests up after they have wandered round some town, village, beauty spot or Trago Mills. Or loading 50 cases on and of the coach. I was trying to move a case the other day, and I really mean trying, and a little old lady came up and said, "That's my case young man. Be careful with it." She was only down for a 4 day midweek break, what in god's name did she have in it I wondered. She must have read my thoughts and said she had everything of value she possessed so if she got broken into while down here in beautiful Torquay she would still have all her important possessions. Nice idea but hard on my poor old back.



As the M5 goes over the Bristol Avon you can see a car park on the seaward side of the road. Not just any car park as you can see but hundreds, possibly thousands of new cars waiting for someone to buy them. I had seen like this a lot recently and always thought that white seemed to be the predominate colour. But I managed to take this photo the other day, I hadn't been able to previously as the traffic is usually too heavy but this day someone else was driving. When I looked at the photo I realised that the cars had white covers, presumably to protect from sunlight and seagull droppings. I wonder how long those cars actually sit there before someone drives one away from a showroom under the mistaken impression he is driving a brand new car?


Note; for pylon enthusiasts I used the photo with a couple of pylons in it