Blog ≫ 2023 ≫ Full day at Harry Potter Studios
10am train to London to go to Harry Potter Studios... so of course, time for parkrun first! I got up early, left a bag of clothes with Clare, walked to parkrun, it was very cold. Clear, which makes it cold, but looking lovely out to sea:
I wore my running shorts but also a hoodie and my big coat. Left the coat on some railings but wore the hoodie round this time. Pretty slow, over twenty-six minutes but it was super icy. Black ice and frozen puddles all the way round was a cautious shuffle at times.
Folkestone parkrun results for event #368. Your time was 00:26:18.
Congratulations on completing your 109th parkrun and your 98th at Folkestone parkrun today. You finished in 115th place and were the 97th Male out of a field of 366 parkrunners and you came 11th in your age category VM50-54. Take a look at this week's full set of results on our website. Your PB at Folkestone parkrun remains 00:20:50. Your best time this year remains 00:25:27.
I'm still a long way off a good time.
After the run, straight to Folkestone Central station to get a train, and Clare and the boys would be meeting the same train at Folkestone West. Very busy so we could not get proper seats together. Luckily Clare remembered the bag of clothes so I could change into some trousers. Had half an idea of having to buy something in the Harry Potter gift shop later.
We go to Watford and get a shuttle bus from there to the studios, though there's also an option to a get a bus all the way from Kings Cross. The studio itself was OK, like a big museum exhibition of costumes and props, plus a lot of the actual sets for you to walk through. Interesting enough.
Of course I have pictures of the family there too, not just me, but I don't share those things on here any more.
After a Prezzo at Euston, and the prices have gone up there. I was amused reading an old blog post the other day where I was saying "phew, expensive dinner at thirty five quid but that did include a bottle of wine" so worth saying it came to ninety two pounds. The boys both had kids meals, even though T1 usually has an adult meal, because we remembered they are quite good and big in Prezzo. This did not include booze though (dryanuary) or desserts which is usually what ramps the price up. It's the cost of living crisis and inflation and all that. Probably we can blame Russia in the mix somewhere, and obviously Brexit.
So good to see most sources are now coming round to the idea that yes, Brexit was an expensive disaster. Shame more people didn't spot this before.
Today I went out for a bit of a longer run, just over 12km. Runuary day twenty-two done big style. I could have run longer, I was picking up speed as it warmed up and I warmed up, but I had to be back for a supermarket delivery so stopped then. Think I could easily have added on a run to Folkestone and back which would have made it half marathon distance. So, after lunch we are going to head into Folkestone, to look for this Prime drink that everyone is on about, in Asda. The boys are not keen to walk both ways but we'll bus in and walk back.
Clare is working a late today, so she's just gone in. A bit of washing and ironing and things to do and then I'm keen to finish off something that we did not quite get working at work on Friday. It was "tech improvement day", I had a grand plan to get something working, we changed the idea part way through to simplify it, it did not a) work b) simplify it so I'm going to go back to the original idea, on my own, in my own time.
This day in 1996 NME Brat Bus Tour, with The Bluetones, The Cardigans, Heavy Stereo and Fluffy. I still think that is a good line-up, it definitely was a big favourite of the time. This is before I went to work at nme.com too. Think I drove up, even though it was at Lonodn Astoria.
dryanuary: Not drinking for the month of January.
runuary: Running at least 5k every day for the month of January.