We have acquired yet another hamster - a roborovski which we collected from Stoke earlier today. This now means we have seven dwarf hamsters. Her previous owners didn't have the room because she wouldn't live happily with their other hamsters. We haven't decided on a name yet.

She is about 3 months old, not fully tame yet but very fast. She hasn't yet learned that when she runs in the wheel she needs to stop slowly otherwise she'll spin round 360° or more.

I can't remember whether I've said this before but one of the best things about being in Coventry over the summer is the number of festivals and events which take place. This weekend it was the Caribbean Festival. We went along for an hour or so, ate some food and watched a steel band. We didn't try the jerked chicken but we did share a spicy chicken dumpling (which was like a long doughnut filled with lumps of chicken) and a salt-fish fritter.

This morning we drove over to the Malt Kiln Farm for the pick your own fruit. It was a bit soggy underfoot because of the rain (after weeks of unrelenting hot weather we finally had rain yesterday). The paths between the bushes were overgrown with weeds so I imagine the fruit is probably organic and pestcide or herbicide free.

The raspberries were very ripe - they came off the plant with no effort at all. We also got some Tayberries (which are a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry). They look like a longer darker raspberry and taste similar to a blackberry.

We took our hamsters to the Quinborne Hamster Show, in Birmingham (except for poor old Reggie who has a spot of exzema on one leg).

Archie did well again, coming first in the Dwarf Hamsters category (for Novice members). Theo came 2nd. The three roborovski were entered into the Pets category. Gel came 3nd, with Zac and Ira getting 'Reserve' and 'Very Highly Commended' respectively.

We bought a strip of raffle tickets while we were there and won a bottle of lambrusco and a toy dinosaur.  

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We watched a couple more of the £1 ex-rental films:

Bubba Ho-Tep This is what independent films should all be like. Elvis is alive and well and in a nursing home in Texas. Enter an Egyptian mummy intent on eating peoples souls. Elvis (with his buddy JFK) have to save the day. Odd, clever and quirky, this is one of the best films I've seen in ages. Grand Theft Parsons I've been a fan of Gram Parson's music for a number of years so I obviously wanted to watch this film. It presents a version of the events following his death with the stealing of his coffin and eventual burning in the desert. Disappointingly not many of his songs feature in the film. Interesting, humorous, worth watching.

I found this website a while ago when I was trying to find out who recorded the original version of Tainted Love (it was Gloria Jones by the way).

The Covers Project

The website allows you to search for singers or bands and it lists songs of theirs which have been covered by other artists, and also songs which they have covered themselves.

Most of the photos here show events in the Jaguar Arena on the saturday and sunday. The falconry pictures are stills taken from video.  

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Coventry's annual free festival was held this weekend. Although it started last night, the main procession was today. The first lot of photos here are from when the procession arrived at the War Memorial Park. Unfortunately my camera batteries kept dying so I only managed to get photos from the start and the end - I missed the ones in the middle.

The second set of photos are from the evening and the Earth Works show. This was more or less the story of Gaia and how humans are mis-treating the planet. It used the floats and costumes from the procession with the added bonus of fireworks at the end.  

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Emma graduated from Warwick Uni with a BSc in Biochemistry. Congratulations.  

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The main reason for going to Blackpool was to go to the Pleasure Beach. The wristbands which allow access to all the rides normally cost £29, which is quite pricey, but we got ours by cashing in some of our 'Tesco Clubcard points', so it was effectively free. If you ignore the several hundred pounds we had to spend at Tesco first, but most of that would be essential food shopping. The full wristbands also allow entry into one of the shows, so it being a hot day we thought the ice show (Hot Ice) would be good. It should be cool in there!

The Pleasure beach didn't open til 11am so we had a spare hour between leaving the B&B and going in. One of the places on the way was a rock shop where they actually made the rock in the back. They were demonstrating how they make the 'Blackpool' letters using long pieces of black and white sugar mixture.

We went on most of the rides while we were there. Thankfully it was a very warm day so when we got soaked on 'Valhalla' (an indoor log flume type ride) we dried out fairly quickly. Although it was reasonably busy, the queues were fairly short for most of the rides.

At the end of the Trauma Towers 'tour' there is the ride itself where everyone sits on a circular bench around the dining table which featured in the story. There was one cocky kid who kept sarcastically saying 'oh, I'm so scared' when the bench started spinning. He soon shut up when it started clunking and shaking.

Red Squirrel, photographed at the Formby Nature Reserve. We didn't manage to get close to the squirrels because it was vey busy and there were a lot of coach parties of noisy kids which probably scared them away. This was the only clear photo I managed during the hour or so that we were there.

While we were up north visiting out parents, we decided to go up to Formby to see the red squirrels, then carry on to Blackpool. When we got to Blackpool, we checked into our B&B then had a walk up and down the sea front, popping into some of the arcades and a few of the pubs en-route.

There has been a lot of talk recently about Blackpool becoming the 'Vegas of the North' with themed casinos. Looking at this place, it is already half way there.

We stopped at a few places for drinks while we were walking along the sea front. We had some cocktails at a place called The Counting House. I can't remember what this one was called but it looks quite spectacular.

Last night we bought a pile of ex-rental videos from Blockbuster for £1 each. We've watched 2 of them so far:

Death to Smoochie A strange film. Not the hilarious zany comedy the box claimed (thank God) but a very strange and quirky film with a good performance from Robin Williams. Some funny moments - worth watching for the scene in the tractor warehouse alone. Starship Troopers 2 Ok, we only bought it because it was cheap and neither of us had seen it before. It was a low budget heap of rubbish and possibly one of the worst ever sequels to a good film (another strong contender is 'Blues Brothers 2000'). The ending was very weak. The film looked like it was made for TV rather than for the cinema.