Liverpool, Balloon and bird escape

Last weekend I went to Liverpool for Angi’s hen party and had a great time. I had only met a couple of them before, the rest were strangers to me but they were all lovely. Unlike when I went to Mini’s house and all her friends completely ignored me in favour of in-jokes and nostalgia, Angi’s friends included me in all the conversations, asked questions about me and were generally lovely and great fun, making me feel comfortable.

On the first night we went to Pizza Express and ate an epic three course meal of garlic bread with cheese, pepperoni pizza and sticky toffee pudding with cream. My, I was full by the end but it was all rather delicious. Everyone else was full too and were all falling asleep by 9pm. I was rather disappointed and looking forward to an epic par-tay but we were home and in bed by midnight!

Here are Little Lou (there were two Lous), Angi and me in Pizza Express.

On Saturday we went on the open top bus tour and learnt all about the history of Liverpool. I’ve told Jay we need to go for a weekend so we can go to all the museums and cathedrals and things; most of them are free to get into. Here are a few photos of the bus tour.
This strange looking building is a cathedral and is said to have the biggest stained glass window in the world, all around the cyclinder at the top.

This is the entrance to the Chinese quarter. The archway was a gift from China and is the biggest Chinese archway outside of China.

This is the Liver building (Liver is pronounced like Ly-ver, not liver as in your internal organ!) The clocks are the biggest clockfaces in Europe, bigger even than those on St. Stephen’s Tower (which most people incorrectly call Big Ben, but Big Ben is actually the name of the bell). They don’t even look that big, it’s bizarre.

And here we all are on the top of the bus.

We also met Ricky Tomlinson from TV’s The Royle Family, which was very exciting!

That night we all glammed up in 1950s clothes and went out to The Cavern Club; a live music venue which is where The Beatles are said to have played their first show. It’s underground and gets VERY FULL and feels VERY claustrophobic as the ceiling is also very low.

They do have some good music on in there though. We only stayed for a short while as it was rammed and noisy, we couldn’t have a conversation and it took ages to get served at the bar. So we went next door to Flares for lots of cheesy music and great singing and dancing. There was a firemen’s training course going in Liverpool the same weekend and there were hundreds of firemen everywhere with loads of them in Flares. Angi and a few others made friends with them and completed a lot of their dares including get a Dirty Dancing type lift and get a man to remove an item of clothing. My dare was to dance a table but there were no tables so I managed to avoid that one! lol.

Definitely a good weekend and I can’t wait to meet them all again, which I will do at Angi’s wedding if not before.

On Tuesday dad booked his balloon flight for the sixth time. It keeps getting cancelled as the weather has to be JUST RIGHT and is almost impossible in the UK. I bought him a red letter day experience for his 60th birthday, 18 months ago. I actually bought him a car driving experience but he swapped it for a balloon flight; as long as he got something he wants.

Even three hours before the flight was due to go ahead, the pilot wouldn’t make a decision and told him to turn up anyway; it’s 180 miles away from my dad’s home! So he drove down anyway and we were very excited to find out it was going ahead! It’s only 25 miles away from me so I drove over after work to meet him. I took lots of photos and, after they flew off, me and my nephew had to sit in a field with Meg the dog and wait for them to return. We were waiting for three hours and, by the time they landed, packed up the balloon and drove back, it was pitch black dark and 11pm!

But dad had the biggest grin on his face when they took off so it was worth it :o) Have some photos.
Spreading it out.

Inflating it with two giant fans.

Adding fire to make it rise.

Up she goes!

Dad, in the blue t-shirt, with a big grin on his face.

And they’re off!

Meg wonders where he’s gone.

Rob (my nephew) watches.

There they are way off in the distance. Now it’s just a waiting game until they get back.

Yesterday the weather was lovely so I decided to put my birds outside for a bit, I thought they would like meeting some of the sparrows. I was in the kitchen and Jay was outside when I heard him shouting “The birds are out!” I ran out just in time to see both of them whizzing off in different directions. The male disappeared right away but we could see the female sitting in a tree, shouting for the male. There was no reply so I have no idea where he was. She hopped around the tops of the trees for about an hour, with me following her, before flying off and disappearing.

Turns out there was a small hole in the cage where I had taken off a food pot and completely forgot about it. I’m so angry with myself, I can’t believe they’re gone.

It’s now been over 24 hours and I’ve been outside for a lot of that as the weather’s been lovely, so I’ve been listening out for them but haven’t heard a peep so they’re gone for good. I just hope they found each other and that they can survive out there, although they’ve been captive their whole lives I’m not holding out much hope. There are at least three cats that prowl the area and Jay spotted a sparrowhawk in our garden the other day, so if it isn’t those, it’ll be a car, the heat or not being able to find suitable food or water.

I’ve been keeping zebra finches for over ten years and am used to hearing their constant chatter. Now, every time I go into the dining room and see that they’re not there, my heart lurches and I feel sick.