A wedding at zoo

Chris and Louise got married at Chester zoo and it turned out to be a brilliant idea.



The days and weeks prior to wedding were very miserable but the wedding day itself was wonderful bright day with odd cloud but no rain, I arrived with Andy, Heather and kids and met Jeff, Lucy, Matt and Sam at gate.



We then spent the morning wondering the zoo, I had brought tie and jacket with me but left them in the car and unfortunately that's were they stayed for the whole day leaving looking a bit of scruff compared to the rest.

Starting with a quick monorail ride which took you only half way around the zoo we took in quite a lot before returning mid day to the hall within the zoo for the wedding. There people like Grum, Colin, Lotti, Gareth, Leslie, James, Dom, & Brian were waiting along with the groom, Karen was best man well I suppose best person. The bride was hidden away in wedding dress somewhere.



Called into the hall we were seated and waited for the bride who looked wonderful when she arrived, although Chris looked smart in his wedding suit.



The civil ceremony was conducted with a bit humour by the registrar or whatever you call her, followed by poem, all of which went well with the rest of the style of the wedding, they even managed to forgo best man speeches apart from quick thank you to everyone, which I thought was great.

After the wedding and bite to eat were told we could wonder the zoo again until it closed at which point we asked to return for cake cutting, more food and special treat.

I wondered the zoo with a few of those listed above, you can see some pictures below. Unlike Twycross which is a monkey/ape zoo Chester seems to concentrate of cats more than anything, although like most zoos it has a fair share of everything, including a bat cave which is pitch black until your eyes adjust and then full of bad whizzing past you and no doubt pooing on the odd person.








Chris and Louise cut the very nice giant chocolate cheese cake, then the zoo keepers turned up to give a personal public free tour of zoo and watch them feed the animals which was ace since some of the shy animals turned out especially for us. I particularly like the black panther which was invisible in its enclosure, but quick call and thrown fish and the panther darted out the undergrowth and incredible speed, ran along the windows and disappeared back into the undergrowth turning invisible again, what a wonderful animal.


Chris & Louise then took a few of us larpers off to see a statue he had found in corner of zoo not very visited while having professional photos taken, the statue photo below must have been created by some sort of cthulhu horror fan see photos below.




After the tour we returned to chocolate fountain and disco, chocolate fountain was yummy, although I should not have had that last chocolate covered strawberry which left me bloated and uncomfortable, but it was a chocolate fountain with quality chocolate so how could I resist.

I can honestly say the best wedding I've ever been too.

Got home early next morning since I decided not to stay locally.

A few more zoo pictures

Easter week.

Easter weekend I started a weeks holiday with lots of plans starting with a trip to Stratford upon Avon with JulieS to visit the Butterfly Farm which was great, especially to practise your camera skill, took loads of photos a small sample below (wish I took my SLR). The Butterfly Farm is quite warm being kept between 25 and 30deg C, and at 80% humidity since its full of tropical butterflies as well a few fish, reptiles and birds that don't like the taste of butterflies.





This photograph is stolen from Julie and shows me with a butterfly.


Photo of Julie taking a photo


Mr Iguana


After the butterfly farm we had quick wander around Stratford, which looks interesting, didn't visit any of the other attraction or Shakespeare properties although we did pop in Nash's house garden which was free and full of odd but interesting sculptures inspired by Shakespeare plays.



During the following week I mainly spent my time making steam punk guns, a sniper rifle and kind of grenade launcher which I converted into stun gun for the weekends larp event.



The sniper rifle was made from a old cap gun stock,plenty of screws, bit of brass tube, some smaller tube cut to act has spacer for a toy telescope sprayed with brass paint for the gun site. Added to this was decoration in the form the nozzle from old brass paraffin blow torch,some drawing pins, and a bit of wood stain/varnish.


The grenade launcher used the rest of the paraffin blow torch, a cardboard tea tube, a couple of pipe fittings, a sink strainer, another old cap gun stock, a few screws, a bit glue and some more brass spray paint.


After several days of searching for bits I now have lots more junk to make several more steam punk guns or gadgets.

Last weekend I crewed a larp event and got to play a new long term character, currently called the Hermit, he was a bit of grumpy and plenty of fun to play.



The crew (excluding me and AndyL)


The weather on Saturday was the warmest of the year and with lots of carrying kit up and down slopes quite hard work for a unfit chap like me. Sunday was much better, well cooler anyway.

ChrisA with his new steam tech gun and also the one I made.


Took plenty of photos most are the ascendancy website.



I did also go to see Kick Ass, yet another new movie based on a comic book. Enjoyed it, although found myself quite shocked by the language coming out the 13year old girls mouth, I suppose that was intended. Very funny dark humour, don't go and see if don't like comics books

Mess by the Oak Tree

This weekend despite not feeling well I went along to crew at LRP event at Shining Cliff Wood and found the much of the west end devastated by woodland maintenance. The signs says they a clearing the softwoods to allow a hardwood forest to re-establish itself, this may be great in the long term but they have stripped vast areas of trees totally and thinned the other area so much they are hard to describe as woodland anymore.

From a entry gate at Higgs Lane to the Shinning Cliff hostel car park run 2 paths, the upper path is still a nice place to walk, the lower path is not, stripped of trees, and then the path bulldozed through the debris leaving loose boulders its a place to avoid and will take many years to grow back into nice walk. The end which did have a nice leafy clearing with a oak tree in middle as been halved in sized, given a nice new footbridge, but the hillside behind has been fully cleared of all tree and was full of the noise of chains saws cutting down more, a large logging company seems to have established a base on the road up alongside the wood.

Once past the east end of the wood into the hostels area things are still untouched and protected by owners so will remain that way.

The bottom path, it looks like this from the area we park in all the way to the Hostel car park.


The old oak tree clearing which was full of atmosphere as been reduced to this.


The back drop has been cleared of trees.


The event itself went well, it was 3 or 4 degrees C which did not feel that cold and dry on Saturday, Sunday it did drizzle then rain at the end of the day, so my costumes got very damp and muddy. The players got into things even if the event was designed to keep them moving, fighting and thus warm, its not the time of year for long outdoor negotiations, although their seemed plenty of things to discuss.

AndyL who wrote the plot had now way of knowing what the players would do Sunday with many optional paths so we had to have many contingency plans and quick costume changes at the ready.

Two mountain bikers nearly came off as they rounded a bend and spotted 2 Gaisha in the wood trying to seduce a chaos mage.


Sam forgot her hair brush, I thought she would make a good Ronald McDonald.



I finished the weekend feeling much fitter than I started with the running around clearing up my listlessness, but the downside was the my cough got worse as the mucus settled on my chest and I think as set itself up for a long stay.

War gamers and reenactors

After all my previous weekend that were hectic, I had a really quiet one which was welcome, the only thing I did of note was go to a party in Nottingham at my friend Dave's.

He had got together lots of people I knew from the past for what ever reason not quite sure, re-enactors and war gamers, quite a few Games Workshop staff where he works in the design team and also does his own war games figures.

One of the Perry twins was there who I had just brought figures off by mail order and John Stollard who I went to Paris with to play Warhammer for the French in 1980something, he now runs his own war games company, Warlord Games.

Most people I knew even if a few names did not come straight to my mind, I suppose once in a decade its nice to see old acquaintances.

They say never far from a rat, well this one lost a argument with my car as I found it flattened on my drive, I say rat because of it size which was about 250mm excluding the tail, so I think just too big for mouse.



I think rats can be cute, but all I thought about was disease as got the shovel to carry the corpse to the bin, especially with the hundreds of flies buzzing around it.

Photo 38 of 52

Another Spider.

Photo 33 of 52

Insey winsey spider came rushing out a bush for his freshly delivered lunch just as I arrived home last Sunday so he got snapped by my camera.

If there is a spider expert out there, what's his name?