Blackpool

It always seems after a few weeks away you get back into that work/day off/not do a great deal routine so easily and it feels as though you have never been away. Our trip to Manchester and surrounding areas was over too quickly but we did get to visit somewhere we had been the previous year and where my lovely husband vowed never to go again.
Blackpool. Las Vegas of the North some might say. Our first experience of this Lancashire town was not the best, bitterly cold winds coupled with recovering from horrendous sickness and the steep prices to visit the top attractions does not make the best day out. The highlight of our trip was the Comedy Carpet an amazing piece of work by artist Gordon Young, commissioned by Blackpool Council at a cost of £2.6m. Constructed from over 160,000 individual granite and concrete letters it covers the Tower Festival Headland in front of the Blackpool Tower, a total area of 2,200 square metres.

Comedy and Blackpool go together like the proverbial horse and carriage. The Comedy Carpet has provided a home to over 850 of the best British comics and writers with something for everyone from every generation. What I love the most is the more you move over it reading quotes and gags, the more you want to explore and see what else is there to be discovered. My husband bought me the guide book, but I didn't have this the first time we visited as it hadn't been published yet as we visited a couple of months after it first opened. The carpet itself is divided into twenty sections, Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and Wise, Ken Dodd and a few others have their own sections crammed with the best of the best. There are also areas dedicated to TV, radio as well as history and iconic catchphrases. Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies are favourites of my husband so he was more than happy to spend a while on the carpet as I happily snapped away. I took a couple of hundred photographs and luckily this time we had the most beautiful blue skies and sunshine with no hint of that chilling wind from the previous year. Here are just a couple of photographs with a few of my favourites.

What else did we do in Blackpool? Last year they were in the process of changing something to do with the trams so they weren't running and husband was not happy about this so this time, after he was promised a ride, we went on the tram right down to Starr Gate. As it was such a lovely sunny day we had a little walk on the beach before coming across the biggest disco glitter ball in the world, with 45,000 mirrored tiles! Of course Blackpool has a long running ballroom dancing tradition as well as the comedy connections. In the sun it was fabulous and perfect for a few little self portraits.

 

 

 

The day was topped off with lunch at The Albert and The Lion Wetherspoons and a look around the town centre where I bought a beautiful floral cake stand in TK Maxx. All in all we had a lovely time and much better than the first time, I think we will definitely be back one day.