Last month, I spent a fun evening at Arcade Club in Bury with Michael and Lee. We went there back in January, and they have 4 floors of arcade machines and some other classic games from the 70s up to now! Just like my first time, my gaming skills weren’t the greatest, but it was really nice to catch up with both Michael and Lee – I’d seen Lee briefly whilst in Edinburgh in August, but I don’t think I’d seen Michael since our last time doing this.

Also, at the end of September, I had some Bristolian house guests for the weekend – Ali had been invited to a 50th birthday party in Buxton, and came up with the kids, along with our friend Claire to stay over on the Friday and Saturday night. The plan originally included me looking after the kids whilst the others were at the party, but at the last minute they discovered there’d be other kids there, so they went too.

Anyway, with them arriving on the Friday night, it meant we could all do something on the Saturday before their party in the evening. Last time they stayed, we all went to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, and I spotted that currently they’ve got a special exhibition based on the CBBC show ‘Operation Ouch!‘, which I know the kids are big fans of.

The actual name of the exhibition is ‘Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You’, and is an interactive journey through the human digestive system, and as you can imagine, is just perfect for kids! It was actually really well done, with a giant human mouth, fun exhibits, and lots of fun educational games for them to play. When we got to the gift shop, we had a look at the various bits of tat they were trying to sell, but I ended up buying each of the kids a stretchy poo!

We also checked out some of the other things at the museum – there was a cool set of games based on nuclear power that they got involved with, and we also went to the ‘Experiment’ exhibit which they had a lot of fun at last time.

After all that, we then walked across town, over to Cathedral Gardens where a Medieval Quarter festival was taking place. I wasn’t sure what exactly they’d have there, and was a bit worried it’d be a bit of an anti-climax after getting them all to walk there! Luckily, there were a load of historical re-enacters doing some sword fighting, and showing off a selection of the armour and weapons they use, and the kids totally loved all of that! They tried on helmets and got to use some of the swords and shields – luckily they’re designed to look realistic without being dangerous, although they did still have a bit of weight to them!

Ali and Claire had a bit of a chill out sitting in the gardens whilst I hung out with the kids, and it was really nice to see them having such fun with the mediaeval stuff. And some of the re-enactors were really good answering their questions in a way that they could understand, although I’m not sure Ali would appreciate the kids having sword fights with full sized weapons at home!

We got the tram back, and got home at about 4 o’clock which gave them time to sort out their fancy dress for the party. The theme was children’s books, so Claire went as Mrs Twit, and Ali and the kids went as the farmers from Fantastic Mr Fox.

Sunday morning was a bit of a lazy one (which was fine because I was sleeping down in the dining room!), so we just hung out whilst the kids played, and they all left back for Bristol around midday.

And finally, over the last month or so, I’ve been to see some shows in Manchester, so here’s a quick round-up! Firstly I went to see Derren Brown’s Unbelievable at the Palace – I saw a tweet about it, and saw there were still a few tickets available, so bought one for that evening! It was a weird show – I’ve seen Derren Brown live a few times now, and it’s been spectacular, but I was interested to see how a show that he’s created, but doesn’t appear in, would be. It was a run ahead of the West End, so I’m sure they’re tweaking things continually, but I wasn’t overly impressed. Basically, he’s trained up a bunch of actors to perform various tricks and illusions, but it all felt a bit ‘Butlins’ to me! I think I’d been spoilt by being so recently at the Edinburgh Fringe and seeing some really good magicians, and this theatre show really lacked the showmanship you get with experienced magic performers.

I’ve also been to see both Mark Watson and Jason Byrne performing their latest stand-up shows – both really good, and then I went to see Brian Butterfield giving a lecture on ‘The Call Of Now’, which was both strange and hilarious! Peter Serafinowicz was in character the whole time, in a really good prosthetic and it was so funny! I was very tempted to buy some bonbonbonbons from the merch stand! And then the last show I’ve been to see was ‘TONY! – The Tony Blair Rock Opera’, which I only found out about on the day, and was able to get a ticket for. It’s a comedy musical written by Harry Hill and the guy who played Glen Ponder on Alan Partridge’s chatshow (as well as having lots of other credits!), and it certainly didn’t give Tony Blair an easy ride! I thought it was really funny, although I don’t think the couple next to me had really checked out what the show was about, because they didn’t laugh at any point during the show!