No Stabilisers

Had one of those classic Father-Son moments in the park today.

Frodo's been riding his bike on one stabiliser for a while now. The result is that he's riding it leaning out to one side to provide counter-balance.

Went up to the park with him and took the stabiliser off.

Ran with him a few times, holding onto the handlebar and shouting "pedal, pedal, pedal" before letting go. Keeled over a couple of times at first, then he started to get it.

At first about 6 turns of the pedals before he either wobbled out of control, came off or put his foot down.

After an hour or so he'd increased this to about 20. Showed off his new found skill to Mum up and down the path outside the house a few times, before he came in.

I'm dead proud of him - quite an achievement given that he has difficulties with balance and coordination. He's going to tell his physio teacher tomorrow.

Tooth Fairy - 4

Frodo's other front tooth was hanging on by a very strong gum-thread on Thursday night.
I got him to wobble it a lot until finally, as I was examining how he was doing, it pinged out and landed on his bed.

Popped it in an envelope with a note to the Tooth Fairy to come and get it.

This time she left a small Lightning McQueen car under his pillow.



Samwise has been observing this activity closely. We found out at a children's party on Saturday that he's been giving some small white nuts to the kids in his school class to try and "trick the tooth fairy" with. So far she hasn't been fooled :)

Tooth Fairy - 3

Frodo lost his third tooth on Saturday. One of his front teeth this time. Looks like the other one will be soon to follow.

The Tooth Fairy that visits our house tends to deliver small toys, rather than money, in exchange for children's milk teeth. Last time she left a small "bumblebee" transformer.

This time she left a tiny Optimus Prime.

Giant Spider Sighted in Liverpool 3

We all went out again to see the spider leave Liverpool.
Here's the last still pics that I took. Had to switch to the video camera, as the snap camera is useless outside after dark.

We knew that had returned to it's nest on the Concourse tower, and would probably move as dusk approached. We got there at 18:30 and stood on a traffic island between St John's shopping centre car park and St George's hall and waited.

Spotted a couple of friends who live on the Wirral waiting nearby, so we shouted them over and had a chat. The Penny Farthing pub was blasting out music. Every now and again the DJ played the spiderman theme from the 60's cartoon.

Around 19:30 the French chaps in the fancy fencing jackets - I've since learned that they are called "Les Manipulateurs" - abseiled down from the top of the building, and strapped themselves onto La Princesse, as the spider is known.

The monster then slowly descended, as musicians mounted on cherry-pickers arrived and played. Gradually the creature was lowered to the ground, then it slowly turned and began to move along William-Brown street.

We watched it go, with the musicians leading the way, at which point darkness had fallen, so I switched to my video camera. We decided to dodge around the back of St George's Hall and meet up with the creature on the other side. We lost our friends, but I think that they opted to follow the spider in the other direction, as they hadn't seen it yet.

We stood at the back of a line of people and watched the musicians go past, then saw the spider coming. This time a number of "Les Manipulateurs" were leaping onto it's legs and allowing themselves to be carried up into the air, and back down again.

The spider became interested in the people sitting on the walls of the hall for a bit, then came right past us.
There was enough of a gap at the back of the crowd to walk along, so we found ourselves once again walking with the spider. I walked along with a small boy on my shoulders and holding up the video camera, whilst keeping pace with the arachnid, which was putting on a spectacle as it hissed and sprayed the crowd.

Down towards the Queensway tunnel the crowd got a lot thicker. We managed to squeeze our way into a spot beside the roundabout where the final action took place. We had to alternately pick up Frodo and Samwise for short periods, to make sure that they got a view of the action.

We really felt the heat of the flames that frightened the creature into leaving, and were doused by the water cannons. There was a fusillade of fireworks, and then it began to snow. The spider squatted down, curled up and began to disappear into the tunnel.

Frodo and Samwise were waving goodbye frantically. Samwise was sobbing, and tears were rolling down down his cheeks because he "didn't want the spider to go". He kept on waving and crying as I held him up, right to the end - people were nudging each other around us and going "aahhh!" when they saw him.

Finally around 22:00 it was all over, the spider's snow was still falling, and the music still playing as we headed back to the bus station. Feeling a little guilty for letting the boys stay up so late, but really glad that we'd managed to go out as a family four times to see this marvellous creation, since it's unlikely to come here again.

I'll have to get the video off-tape and post some here sometime.
There's loads of good pictures on the La Machine website. I'm off to buy the poster and the T-shirt.

Giant Spider Sighted in Liverpool 2

I was on the early shift this morning. The spider had moved in the night and had settled down to "sleep" on the concourse outside the Echo Arena.
Got there at about 07:15 and took a few photos. There was just myself and a camera crew there. As I was leaving a man turned up dragging along a small boy wearing a coat over his pyjamas.






Took the boys back later at 18:00. We waited for about an hour in the pouring rain. Then some musicians appeared, pushing through the crowd and climbing into elevated platforms. They tuned up for a bit, then their platforms rose higher and they struck up a rhythmic tune.

Three scientists/operators/riders clad in what looked like white fencing jackets climbed into seats on top of the spider and the machine-beast began to wake...

Numerous eyes lit up. The legs opened and rose with a hiss to reveal a ring of scientists/operators/riders riding underneath the spider. The mandibles opened and steam/foam sprayed out. Jets of liquid squirted out of the abdomen.

One small girl freaked and ran off shrieking - her mother ran to catch her and calm her down.

The creature/mechanoid rose, turned and began to stride away.



We found ourselves following the spider, walking alongside the spider, climbing up steps to get level with it, going down another set of steps and ended up in front of it as it approached.

Everyone was grinning, laughing, staring and running along with delight. The musicians cacaphonic medley continued whilst the beasts limbs waved close above people's heads, bumped lamposts, stepped on walls and brushed the tops of trees.

We legged along just in front of the spider, pausing now and again to take many photos.







We realised that the rain had stopped when the spider began to move. It came back every now and again, but wasn't as bad as earlier. We watched the monster do a circuit of Salthouse Dock, walking out along The Strand, and then back in through the main gates that lead to the Albert Dock.
It's legs hovered just above the heads of the crowd. People were reaching out and touching the base of the feet.




Finally the spider was hoisted into the air and swung out over the waters of the dock. It dipped it's toes into the water and then was showered by a number of water cannons. It disappeared in a mist of spray for a short while, then, after returning the water cannon salute with a burst of spray from it's abdomen it swung back onto the land, and headed off for the Cunard Building.



By this time it was 21:00, so we called it a day and carried 2 tired, wet, happy boys onto a bus home. I think that we were really lucky to be in the right spot at the right time when it woke up for it's first major outing.

It's off for a walk around the city tomorrow. We're going to miss this, but hoping to see some more on Sunday, when the spider leaves the city.

New Swing Bridge

Liverpool get's a new swing bridge - however it's one time only.

This is the return leg of it's one and only swing. They're raising the footbridge at Princes dock to allow canal boats to pass underneath so that the Leeds-Liverpool canal extension can now take boats all the way to the Pier Head. It was swung out to a temporary resting point a few weeks ago. They've built supports to raise the bridge, and now they're swinging it back.

I've always liked this bridge, with it's whale-bone look, so I'm glad they're keeping it. I think that it cost a lot to build in the first place, which is why they're conducting this feat of engineering, rather than demolishing it and making a new one.

They just started to swing the bridge back in place at 15:00 today, as I was leaving work to go and pick up Frodo from school. I persuaded one of the builders/engineers to let me leg it across the temporary footway, moments before the bridge started swinging, otherwise I'd have been really late if I had to walk the long way round. (Hope he didn't notice me pausing to take the photo's).

Giant Spider Sighted in Liverpool

We've been looking forward to this one for a while. Picked Frodo from his first day back at school, then collected Samwise and Novelist Supermum and told the boys that we were going into town. Parked up and I asked them if they thought that we would see any giant spiders.

They just thought that Daddy was fibbing again. Then they saw this...



It's all part of the latest, and probably one of the best, Capital of Culture Events.
It's being staged by La Machine and Artichoke, who put on The Sultan's Elephant in London a couple of years ago.

There's more on BBC News - but their photos aren't as good as ours :P

The plot over the next few days is that scientists will experiment on the creature, which will then wake up and move around the city. It will then finish in a spectacular finale on Sunday night. Looks to us like the creature is going to exit via the old Mersey Tunnel.

Unfortunately we're commited to a family event on Saturday, so we'll miss what's going on that day, but we're hoping to see as much as we can with 2 excitable, and possibly very tired boys on Friday and Sunday.