city breaks – unicornpostbox

Earlier this November, me and my beautiful mum Debbie had a weekend break away to Hull to go see ‘Kinky Boots’, the musical, at Hull New Theatre. Please see below a description of our travels, with accompanying photography. Hope you enjoy 🙂 🙂

Friday 15th November

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the train station to travel to Hull, we soon realised that our train had been cancelled due to the flooding in South Yorkshire! 😦 Oh no, not a great start to our trip. My dad, who is a taxi driver, drove us instead. Nevertheless, when we finally arrived at our Ibis city centre Hotel, we were pleased to be in Hull and excited to go and explore the city.

We found a lovely quaint little fish and chip shop on Savile Street, and tucked into delicious grub and ice cream sundae, yum yum.

We took some nice photographs of Hull City Hall, the Maritime Museum, and Queen Victoria Statue in Queen Victoria Square, before visiting Ferens Art Gallery.

We very much (me especially) enjoyed viewing the various collections Ferens offers in different galleries, in particular we appreciated the ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Modern and Contemporary’ art.

On King Edward Street a gorgeous sparkly Christmas gingerbread house really put us in the festive spirit 🙂

Next, we walked to Queen’s Gardens. Unfortunately, it lacked impressive flower displays, due to the time of year, however it was nice to see the water fountains. Nearby, fun fair attractions lit up the streets. Strolling leisurely around Princes Quay, we rested in a cafe, indulging in Rocky Road chocolate/marshmallows and frothy coffees, yummy. Later filling our bellies with toasties in Cafe Nero, we then set off on a slow walk towards Hull New Theatre, admiring the city in stunning twilight.

We unexpectedly came across rehearsals for a BBC Children in Need concert, so stayed a while and happily danced along to popular songs.

Kinky Boots is an incredible 2016 ‘Best New Musical’ Olivier winner, with songs by Tony and Grammy winning pop sensation Cyndi Lauper. It tells the story of Charlie Price, living in Northampton, who inherits his father’s drab and dull shoe shop. The business is struggling enormously with sales and orders until Charlie meets the glamorous drag queen Lola, and together they decide to re-brand and design sexy glittery knee-length stiletto heels! 🙂 It’s a very entertaining, funny, uplifting, yet moving story – belting out a powerful message; the importance to accept and love ourselves and others. As Kinky Boots has ended it’s dazzling 3 years in the West End, I was extremely keen to go see a performance on the UK/Ireland tour, and… We absolutely loved it! Fabulous darling!

We got chatting to a great couple, massive fans of Kinky Boots, who have seen multiple performances of the show. At our Hull New Theatre performance they had front row tickets, were the first, we noticed, to stand up cheering during the (well deserved) standing ovation and, as you can see above, made a huge effort to dress up for the occasion, haha! Amazing! 🙂 🙂

Saturday 16th November

We started off Saturday morning with a scrumptious English breakfast at our Ibis city centre hotel, as part of our bed and breakfast deal. The first place on our itinerary for the day was Hull Minster, situated in Old Town. There was a craft fair on inside which was very enjoyable to walk around, I bought mum a pretty blue and turquoise brooch for her coat, as a souvenir.

The next port of call was the harbour of Humber Dock Marina, where we took some selfies with the plentiful pleasure boats.

The pier making our way to nearby The Deep was breezy and blustery, so we walked more briskly as the rain poured.

The Deep aquarium was brilliant fun. We loved exploring all the exhibits, such as ‘Awakening Seas’ – learning the four billion years history of the ocean, ‘Lagoon of Light’ – gazing upon colourful cute tropical fish; gaping at the turtles, rays and sharks in ‘Endless Ocean’, becoming mesmerised by jellyfish in ‘Cool Seas’, and my personal favourite, we were delighted to peep at the gorgeous Gentoo penguins as they played and swam in ‘Kingdom of Ice’. Another highlight was venturing through the underwater viewing tunnel! Slightly scary but stunning. I bought mum a teddy turtle as a gift also, awwww 🙂

Afterwards, we ate pizza and indulged in vanilla milkshakes with whipped cream at an Italian restaurant, close by to the aquarium. The Minster looked beautiful lit up as we journeyed back towards our Ibis hotel.

Saturday evening, we got cosy in our hotel room watching Saturday night television and drinking complimentary tea/coffee. Wild, haha! Another tasty full English / continental breakfast the next Sunday morning, and we were on our travels back home. Luckily, the train was running on our return journey, yey!

Summary

As mum is becoming more and more poorly with her Alzheimer’s dementia, I really do cherish these moments and trips away together. We had such an incredible time; discovering all Hull has to offer, eating out, being bedazzled by Kinky Boots the musical, and being in awe of and appreciating all the amazing diverse underwater sea creatures at The Deep. I personally have visited Hull once or twice before, but it was nice to have the opportunity to see more of the 2017 ‘City of Culture’. I would definitely go again, for sure.

Thank you so much, as always, for taking the time to read / view! 🙂 🙂

Keep a lookout for my next blog post, pencil portraits of two Springador dogs! Woof, woof, hehe! 🙂 🙂

Much love, Lauren xx

(Please visit my Facebook page ‘UnicornPostbox’ to ‘like’ and ‘follow’)

Further information:

https://www.thedeep.co.uk [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://www.thedeep.co.uk/plan-your-visit/deep-tour [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://bwml.co.uk/hull-marina/ [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://www.hcandl.co.uk/museums-and-galleries/ferens [Accessed 24th November 2019]

https://www.hcandl.co.uk/museums-and-galleries/ferens/galleries-ferens-art-gallery [Accessed 24th November 2019]

http://www.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/research/research-guides/history-hull-docks.aspx [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://hullminster.org/ [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://www.hulltheatres.co.uk/whats-on/year [Accessed 24th November 2019]

http://www.kinkybootsthemusical.co.uk/ [Accessed 25th November 2019]

http://www.kinkybootsthemusical.co.uk/uk-tour/synopsis.php [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_upon_Hull [Accessed 25th November 2019]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinky_Boots_(musical) [Accessed 25th November 2019]

This year at the end of March, me and my mum Debbie visited Liverpool to celebrate my 27th birthday. We booked up, at a very reasonable price, with National Holidays (have you declared your national holiday yet? Lol) for an overnight trip to Liverpool, with the massive highlight of seeing the matinee performance of ‘Wicked!’ at the Liverpool Empire theatre.

Saturday 31st March 2018

We arrived by coach into Liverpool city centre in the early afternoon of Saturday 31st. We had an hour or so to kill before the matinee performance of Wicked!, so we walked leisurely around the nearby shopping centre, city centre streets, and grabbed a lovely caffè latte. Mum really enjoyed the street performers!

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Making our way to the Empire theatre, we were both super excited. Being a big fan of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ film, I have always fancied going and longed to see the stage musical ‘Wicked!’; for years I have said “Mum, we must go see that one!” It has always been top of my list… and it certainly did not disappoint! ‘Wicked!’ was just as magical, marvellous and mesmerising as I had hoped… SPOILER ALERT: I think the whole concept of the musical, based on Gregory Maguire’s revision of the tale, transforming the ‘evil’ Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s original ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, to Elphaba, the heroine of the story, is great and obviously a very successful idea too… The only little gripe I have will National Holidays, is that I specifically asked not to be seated high up in the theatre, as mum is really afraid of heights. They take personal requests into consideration, but cannot promise them – we were seated high up in the Grand Circle, with a restricted bleeding view! Never mind, we still had a wonderful time 😀 We purchased some small merchandise afterwards, to put in mum’s memory box (she unfortunately has neurological difficulties). We have some lovely little keepsakes to remember the experience always 🙂

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Later on that evening after the performance, we were taken to our chosen hotel on the outskirts of Liverpool. After checking in, we spent the evening eating nice grub in the restaurant, and at a steady pace, drinking ‘Wicked Lady’ (how apt) rose wine in the hotel bar.

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Sunday 1st April 2018

On the Sunday, our final day, we took full advantage of exploring all Liverpool has to offer. We visited the famous Cavern Club on Matthew Street, home to the Beatles. There was a great musician on stage performing classic Beatles songs. We got a couple of fruit ciders from the bar, admired the terrific music memorabilia adorning the walls, and listened to some top-notch music in a really relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. My dad was very jealous when I told him where we’d been, he’s a massive Beatles fan!

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Next we got a quick taxi ride to Cains brewery village, to go have a cheeky gin and tonic in the new Peaky Blinders bar. We were so looking forward to it, as me and my mum are both huge Peaky Blinders fans. There was a vast collection of Peaky Blinders canvases on the wall (as photographed), but I hoped it to be quite a glam and luxurious and sophisticated establishment, like some of the high class swanky bars shown in the series. However, it very much resembled the Garrison.. a bit drab and dingy! So we were a tad disappointed, haha.

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Afterwards, we grabbed delicious street food at Baltic market, a mozzarella pizza for mum, and a burger for me with so many layers I dread to think how many calories I consumed! (I am trying to lose weight, and failing miserably!) There was also a guy playing guitar and some cute craft stalls, so that was really nice.

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We journeyed immediately afterwards in another taxi,, to finish off the day nicely with a little stroll around Albert Dock. As you can see, I took the opportunity to capture some pretty photos:

And that was our celebratory trip to Liverpool! Slightly imperfect in places, but overall a fantastic city break 😀 Bitta scran, and a bitta bevvy, bitta…theatre, (lol)… proper boss! 😀

We are becoming right little getabouts because we have only recently come home from London! We went to see ‘Bat out of Hell; the musical’! So please look out for a London blog post, coming very soon!

Travelling, sightseeing, exploring new places… it’s great isn’t it? Whoever said “There’s no place like home” surely had no clue whatsoever what they were talking about… lol 😛

Thank you so much for reading. Hope you’re having a ‘wicked’ weekend. Much love, Lauren x

(Please visit my Facebook page ‘UnicornPostbox’ to ‘like’ and ‘follow’)

unicornpostbox

art / craft, travel / theatre

Tag: city breaks

Hull / ‘Kinky Boots’ November 2019

Liverpool March 2018