November 19, 2013, by Ollie

The Plot Thickens

The first, of what I hope will be many, Cluedo Nights occurred on Thursday. I promised you something interesting would be in this weeks blog, didn’t I? So who did it, with what and where? Mrs. White, Dagger in the Library and Colonel Mustard, Revolver in the Ballroom.

To be honest with you I didn’t get the answer in the two games we played I just started heading to the basement when I realised everyone else was and pretended to know what I was doing and what the who, what and where was. To quote Rowan Atkinson’s character Enrico in the Rat Race “It’s a raacee!”.  The reason why only two games occurred was we ordered a small takeaway… that took a while to eat.

All the food! (for 5 people)

All the food! (for 5 people)

This weekend I also had the pleasure of going to Durham to see my girlfriend. A 2 and half hour journey turned into a 5 hour journey thanks to a broken down train and some missed connections. However, problems aside, the rest of the weekend was ace. On Saturday night we went and saw the light festival Lumiere. A 4 day event across the city. By coincidence the event was on when I was planning on visiting.

As we walked through Durham on a strangely warm Autumnal night I didn’t know what to expect. The main event was a 20 minute show projected onto the Cathedral, the projection panned across the Cathedral and told a story about Durham and its origins as well as loud speakers playing music to accompany the show.

cathedrallights

just a snippet of the amazing projections on the Cathedral can be seen above.

It far exceeded my expectations and this was just one icing on one cake. There were lots of other shows going on across the city. Here are some of my favourites. Starting with the fish in the phonebox.

I still can't believe it's not real!

I still can’t believe it’s not real!

The rail bridge could be seen lit up from a long way away. Apologies for the terrible quality of the photo, it was a lot more impressive than that!

bridgelights

if only the trains that use the Bridge ran as impressively well

And with another apology, this time to my girlfriend, this mini show of men climbing the side of a building was representing the coal mining history of the North and Durham. I was adamant it wasn’t, even though the coal just out of shot definitely backed up Laura’s argument.

no coal to be seen here...

no coal to be seen here…

It’s getting closer to Christmas and this certainly got me in the spirit!

binbagtree

Made entirely from lights inside different shopping bags. Very impressive!

Another highlight were these amazing headless dancers

they looked so real it was quite spooky!

they looked so real it was quite spooky!

There was plenty more going on and too much to show. Whilst maybe impractical to recommend to my Nottingham based readers to go see it I suggest you make the most of the things that happen around us in Nottingham and go see the Christmas light switch on, on Wednesday!

On the Sunday before heading home we ate out for lunch which was gorgeous, a Calzone Salami e Sp… something. In English it was a folded over Pizza, with salami, pepperoni, ham, spinach, pepper and chilli and tomato. It was heaven! The weekend came to an end too soon but thankfully a much quieter journey home sees me sat here now at least being able to share the stories with you!

Posted in Ollie