Five days in Newark

I shall be spending today until the 24th of December at my girlfriend's house in Newark. She and her mother wanted me over for some of the winter break and so that's where I will be travelling to after we meet up for an event in Nottingham's city centre.

The Fosseway Flyer

Travelling to Newark yesterday meant I rode a bus route that I've seen around ever since I started college in Nottingham: The Fosseway Flyer.

The Fosseway Flyer is one of two methods of public transportation that someone can use to travel between Newark and Nottingham. The route goes through much of my old bus route to college before it takes a major road towards Newark and Lincoln. Most of its stops are in Nottingham, Rushcliffe and Newark itself.

The trip takes about 40-50 minutes, depending on traffic and other road conditions. It is also an expensive route, with a cost of £7.20 for a return ticket.

The housemate departs

This afternoon, I went to visit a former housemate of mine at her room here in Clifton. This particular housemate is from India and was on a Master's course here at Nottingham Trent University; her graduation was a few days ago and tomorrow, she will be returning to India. She will be travelling to London after midnight and her flight back will be in the early afternoon.

I will really miss this housemate of mine. We took several walks together during the summer and became good friends as a result. We shall still be keeping in contact, however, as there are several venues we have open to us to talk but sadly, it will be some time before we see each other again in person. I wish my friend the best and I look forward to when I next see her!

Annie's Burger Shack

Here in Nottingham, there is a restaurant called Annie'e Burger Shack, which serves American-themed burgers. During Pre-Access, my friends and I wanted to go there but it had a month-long waiting list; in Access, we still didn't go but finally, this past June, my Access friends and I went there for a reunion.

A few months later, I took one of my uncles there and then yesterday, I went to Annie's Burger Shack with my girlfriend and her mother. After two years of being unable or not going to Annie's, I've now been there three times in under five months.

Annie's is notable for being one of the best burger restaurants in Nottingham; I've yet to meet somebody who hasn't enjoyed the burgers there.

Pale Waves

Thanks to a YouTube recommendation, I came across the band Pale Waves this afternoon. Their song "Television Romance" was recommended...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot1j5M5PTC4

Followed by their song "There's A Honey":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfPZ6hukcw8

Pale Waves are new on the big scene and are from Manchester. They have worked with The 1975, who are also from Manchester; The 1975 produced "There's A Honey" for Pale Waves and directed the video for "Television Romance".

Pale Waves will be going on tour later this month and one of their venues will be Bodega, which is here in Nottingham.

Goose Fair 2017

The Goose Far is an annual fair held here in Nottingham; it is a famous fair and is reported to have started in the 1200s. Before the 1920s the Goose Fair was held in the market square but moved to the Forest Recreation Ground due to reconstruction of the square.

For the first time in the years I've been here, I attended the fair; I went with three of my housemates. While I didn't go on any of the rides, I did purchase a burger and chips from one of the stands. I also encountered a friend from Pre-Access whom I'd not seen since the days of that course. It was a festive atmosphere and I fully intend to attend it again.

Tram path walk

There are four major routes I take to walk from Clifton to the city centre of Nottingham:

1. Clifton - Wilford - Ruddington - West Bridgford - the city centre

2. Clifton - Wilford - down a footpath close to the river - the tram path via The Meadows part of Nottingham - the city centre

3. Long way via Clifton - Ruddington - West Bridgford (via the route of the 10) - the city centre

4. Direct to the city centre via the footpath by the tram tracks

Recently, I've been walking on that last one, the footpath via the tram tracks. This is easily the most direct way into the city centre from Clifton, as it is a mostly straight route, in addition to avoiding much of the traffic. A modified version of this walk is to take it all the way to the bridge over the Trent but to then turn right and go via West Bridgford, which is what I did today as it adds some extra distance to the walk.

Bakewell August 2017

I visited Bakewell for the first time since July of last year except that on this occasion, a friend came with me. I invited said friend to come with me after he'd been fascinated by my first Bakewell trip when I told him about it.

In Bakewell, we walked around, walked to some of the surrounding paths, climbed one of the small mountains and walked by the river for several hours before returning to Derby and then no Nottingham. This was a much better trip to Bakewell compared to my one last year, where I only spent an hour there, of which half of spent finding a toilet and the other half finding how to return to Derby.

Festival of Learning certificate

A few months ago, I was nominated for a Festival of Learning award, in the category for mature students. A few weeks ago, I was informed that I had not won the award but would be receiving a certificate of achievement instead and that it would be sent to Central.

This afternoon, I paid a short visit to Central (actually, it's now officially the Maid Marian Way campus of Nottingham College) to pick up this certificate. I had a short conversation with one of the receptionists - the one I've known since when she worked at the West Bridgford campus - and then I left.

I expect this to be the last of my accreditations from the Access era. That was academic year 2015-16 and now we're headed for 2017-18; I think I was fortunate to have even have been nominated for Central's internal award over a year ago - to still be receiving any sort of certificate at all this late is staggering.

Back from Cambridge

My bus back from Cambridge was via National Express, which set off from there at 1:15 this morning. The return to Nottingham took two and a half hours and once I arrived here, I walked back to Clifton. I walked back via a well-lit route, which was mostly deserted; until I made it to Clifton, much of the traffic consisted of taxis.

What an amazing 48 hours it was, from when I left on Friday to when I returned this morning. It was an honour to attend my friend's wedding and I wish her and her new husband all the best.

At the hotel in Cambridge

I'm here, I'm in Cambridge, in my hotel and checked in. I arrived here awhile ago and will now be doing some exploring; I need to find the venue for my friend's wedding tomorrow, as well as the bus stops for when I return to Nottingham. After that, I'll have to look for a Tesco or someplace similar to purchase something for my dinner tonight; I didn't bother with a hotel meal because it was expensive.

Farewell to the Rushcliffe Villager 2

Today, I rode what I expect to be my last journey on the Rushcliffe Villager 2. Despite existing for under two years, the service will be cancelled as of this weekend. While Cotgrave will still have the Cotgrave Connection for bus access to Nottingham, it will no longer have the RV2 route to Bingham and villages such as Aslockton and Cropwell Bishop will have to rely on county-operated buses for the time being.

Understandably, there has been some criticism for the cut. Areas of Cotgrave that aren't serviced by the Cotgrave Connection will lose out as will the outer villages around Bingham. Many older people use the RV2 but the company's defence is that the numbers are low and that the service is operating at a loss.

A bit of scenery from the RV2 route appears in this post of mine from late 2015. It is a beautiful route and travels around a large portion of Rushcliffe.

The 80th

My grandparents here in Nottingham are both turning 80 years old this year; my grandfather reached that milestone earlier in the year and my grandmother will do so later. Rather than hold two separate celebrations, my grandparents instead opted to hold a joint 80 birthday party today.

Besides my grandparents and me, others in attendance consisted of my Nottingham aunt and uncle, plus their children and the boyfriends of two of said children; my East of England aunt and uncle were there with their children and the girlfriend of one of them; finally, my Hong Kong uncle was also present. I arrived at 12:30pm before my Nottingham aunt and uncle returned me to Clifton in the evening.

As a present, I bought my grandparents some chocolate from Hotel Chocalat. I usually buy them some chocolate smiley faces but this time they had some chocolate hearts with a hummingbird and flower pattern on them, so I bought those instead, which they loved.

Skylink Derby

Using one of the tickets I was given at the Trentbarton focus group last month, I rode Skylink Derby. As this Trentbarton line is joint-operated between them and Kinchbus, the MANGO cards are not used on this service and so it has not been, until today, a route I had explored.

Skylink Derby begins in Derby (obviously), goes to East Midlands Airport as Skylinks Nottingham and Express do, through Loughborough and all the way to Leicester. I travelled all the way to Leicester and walked around the centre there for a short time. This marked the first time I can recall of my stepping foot in Leicester during the daytime, rather than past midnight. Most of my experience with Leicester comes via travelling through it rather than walking around it.

As for Skylink Derby, it's a fun route; it's long and there's plenty of scenery to observe while riding it. Also, as a result of riding Skylink Derby and using it to travel to Leicester, I have visited all of the outer regions of the Trentbarton network, as viewed here (map is outdated as it shows the defunct Radcliffe Line and Ruddington Connection and doesn't show Skylink Express but nevertheless shows the distant points of the network).

The misogynistic woman

I was at my grandparents' house today doing some work for them. The day progressed as normal until the evening, when the Rushcliffe Mainline wasn't running through the area where they live because of nearby roadworks; as a result, I was required to take a Trentbarton-supplied shuttle bus to Bingham, which would take me to an RM bus for Nottingham. This involved a longer trip back to Clifton but was otherwise no big deal.

In Bingham, a woman in her 50s or 60s, who appeared to be annoyed, boarded. When the bus took its detour, she asked me if the bus was bound for Nottingham; I confirmed that it was, just that it was taking a longer route back. She appeared to accept this but then asked the woman in front of her the same thing and received the same answer; she then appeared to ask the driver it and, again, received the same answer. At this point, she sat back down after she'd been standing to question the driver.

The woman muttered to herself from then on but otherwise appeared to not be bothering anyone; however, once the bus was in Nottingham and we were coming up to the last few stops, another woman who looked as though she was in her 50s then boarded. Then, the angry woman launched a misogynistic tirade against this new woman, calling her all sorts of anti-woman terms on the basis that she was "dressed like a prostitute" (yes, those were her words); this tirade continued until the new woman left at the second-to-last stop and even after that, the angry woman continued her rant.

As for why the driver didn't do anything, he was concentrating on evening driving but also, this bizarre behaviour occurred in the last five minutes of the journey; it likely would have been more of a hassle for everyone if he'd told her off. When the bus came to the end, her angry woman got off whereas the driver, as well as an NCT driver who was also on boarded, talked about the weird rant by the woman.

I hope the angry woman has since calmed down and that the new woman wasn't heavily hurt by the incident.

The tram

For the first time ever, I rode the Nottingham tram network, from the city centre to Hucknall:

A college friend and I travelled to Hucknall because he was being featured as a musical act at a pub up there. This was another first for me: Attending a friend's musical gig.

I'd never ridden the tram until now because I'd always found my way around Nottingham via foot, bus or the occasional lift.

Return to Central

I spent some 2 1/2 hours at Central this afternoon. My reason for being there? Because come September, it will no longer be Central College Nottingham - by then it and New College Nottingham will form Nottingham College. As a matter of fact, they have already merged but are going through a transitional period.

My old campus on Maid Marian Way will be used for science classes; as a result, my Sociology and Psychology teachers will be moving elsewhere - to what is currently the NCN Adams campus. The canteen staff, librarians and receptionists will remain for now but it is unknown if this arrangement will last for the long-term.

Even though I finished at Central nearly a year ago, there were still plenty of staff and a small amount of students who knew me and were eager to talk if they had time to do so. I'm unsure how many will remain by September but if there are a few, I'll visit again.

London 2017 - National Express

My chosen method of travelling to and from London yesterday was via National Express - a coach company. While coaches take longer to reach London than trains do, they are significantly cheaper. Once I knew when I'd be travelling to London, I booked a month and a half in advance and paid a low fare for my tickets; the other trade-off besides the journey taking longer is that I was restricted to taking the buses at the specified booking times. For example, my bus from Nottingham was only the one at 6:05am and my return from London was at 9:30pm; if I'd missed them I'd have to have bought a new ticket for another bus and it would have been more expensive.

The route down was fun. While much of it took place on the M1 (the UK's main motorway from the south to the north), there was a brief stop in Milton Keynes and the route through London to the Victoria coach station took the bus through the Royal Borough of Kensington, which I'd never seen in person before. For the route back, it again stopped briefly in Milton Keynes but also went through downtown Leicester, which makes it the second time I've seen Leicester between 12:00am and 2:00am.

Will I travel via National Express again. Most certainly, yes!

For the very short term...

For the last day of my three-day bus ticket, I travelled my old favourite route of Nottingham - Mansfield - Derby. It wasn't exactly a pretty day out, as it rained all morning and afternoon, but it was still worthwhile and a good way to celebrate the end of my university work for this academic year.

My goal over the next few years, before the academic year ends (doesn't end officially until the 9th), I want finish at least a couple of books I still have borrowed from the library and then I will return them all. While I could keep them over the summer and hand them back in October, I'd rather return them now so that I'm not worrying about them later.

Easter 2017

This is the first time that Mum, my brother and I have spent Easter in Nottingham. I walked to the city centre in the morning, purchased some more Easter eggs at a Tesco there before returning to Clifton and spending the day with Mum and my brother. They bought me some Easter eggs, too, but I forgot to bring them back with me when I returned to my accommodation a few minutes ago.

In all, it was a good day. A worthwhile Easter, indeed!