Wednesday 27 May 2015

Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular


On Monday we journeyed through time and space at the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular in Cardiff.

As you've all noticed by now, I'm a huge Doctor Who fan--we all are actually--and we've had tickets booked for months and months. Every so often I'd catch sight of the note in the diary and get all excited before remembering that we still had ages to wait. But wait no more! It's been and gone now, or is still yet to come if you're further north...


Having never been to an event billed as a spectacular, let alone a symphonic spectacular, we weren't a hundred percent certain what to expect. I thought it might be a bit like Doctor Who at the Proms with monsters popping up every so often and I expected Peter Davison (Five!!) to tell a few jokes here and there, as he's quite fond of that.  Well, we got that and more!!

Peter Davison reunited with the TARDIS
Each piece of music, played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the Chorus of Wales (AKA The Doctor's House Band) and conducted by Ben Foster, was accompanied by a video montage.  We romped through the Twelfth Doctor's tenure, said "Hello, Hello" to the monsters, were invaded by some Daleks who invaded the Motorpoint Arena and forced the orchestra to play "Dalek music", and visited Last Christmas with the Dream-crab monsters mingling menacingly in the stalls.

The Teller
Concert photography is hard!!
Highlights were Abigail's Song from A Christmas Carol, originally performed by Katherine Jenkins and beautifully sung by Elin Manahan Thomas and the full Pandorica Suite. Absolutely spine tingling.  The Companions Theme was magnificent and has reminded me of how much I grew to love Donna Noble as Ten's companion. I really need to re-watch that series very soon...

Bravo!
And of course the performance wouldn't be complete without Murray Gold's reworking of the iconic Doctor Who theme!



Best of all, Lucas has decided that he likes orchestra music and wants to go to another concert. Result!!



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Monday 25 May 2015

The one where I meet The General Lee (and go racing)


Ever had one of those days when you nip out for a few minutes and then crawl home hours and hours later?

(That may be a slight analogy for my blogging habits of late, too...)

We popped to The Mall to pick up Dave's repaired iPhone and after plenty of mooching around the shops--so much gorgeous copper and crystal at John Lewis just now--we remembered that the Bristol Motor Show was on, so we had to stop to take a quick look...

Lucas checked out the new Smart cars: "Too big"
I was chatting with a rally car driver sponsored by my garage when Lucas hared over and demanded my phone because he had to take pictures.  When I eventually wandered over I found the boys getting snap happy with the '89 Batmobile.

So big! Had to a panorama to get it all in!
I'm afraid that for once the Batmobile didn't hold my attention. Right next to it was The General Lee!  Please tell me you've all heard of The Dukes of Hazzard?  My brother and I used to pretend that we were jumping The General whenever we drove over a humpback bridge and had that millisecond of hang-time... I was going to marry Bo Duke when I was old enough.

The General Lee
The General Lee. Even better than the Batmobile.
The Wee Man was in his own world of geeky joy as he went nuts over Bumblebee from the Transformers movies.

Love the Autobot detail on the wheels!
There were loads of lovely new cars at the show, but I couldn't help but coo over these beauties, who were selling ice-cream.

Possibly the cutest ice-cream stand ever!
From vintage to hi-tech loveliness...


Lucas loved having a go on one of the Freewheelers blood transport bikes and getting to play with the blues and twos.  I hadn't realised how huge these bikes are!

I thought it was a nice little show. There was a nice mix of eco--Smart cars, the Tesla, bike-powered smoothies--along with family cars, motorbikes, and fun displays from BMX riders.

Afterwards we were in the mood for a drive so we zoomed around the countryside which was absolutely stunning in the sunshine and eventually found ourselves at Castle Coombe watching the Lotus Owners Club track day.

Trust me, they were fast!
Sun, fast cars and a great view... we had loads of fun watching the racing and predicting who was going to spin off. Dave is the Undisputed Champion in that respect...



We loved watching all the Lotuses zoom around the track. I'm not sure I'd have the guts to throw my own car around the track but it's a hell of a lot of fun watching other people do it.  The boys are off to watch Smart car racing at Castle Coombe next month--I wasn't very interested before, but this was so much fun that I might tag along.  (If I can take an armchair.)

Here's some cars that managed to stay on the track!



And purely because no post is truly complete without a shot of the Wee Man, here's Lucas doing his very best 70s impression.

Straight out of The Professionals!

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