This photo shows two swans building a nest on the pond in Sefton Park from a few weeks ago. A nest at the base of a water fountain. Epic swan fail.
Liverpool Culture Vlog – Liverpool One Wheel
There’s nothing much to say about the big wheel in Liverpool One’s Chavasse Park, so I did a little video during a ride on it.
Liverpool Food and Drink Festival
Look, I’m a big fan of food. I made an aioli dip all by myself to go with some fish I fried tonight, OK?
I love food, but I didn’t love the launch for Liverpool Food Festival today in Sefton Park.
I suppose in many ways it was a victim of its own success, but the congestion in the enclosure and queues evident throughout the day weren’t a lot of fun.
Sefton Park in Summer: Barbecues, booze, bins
The summer always makes me realise how much work goes into making Sefton Park looking tidy and pretty.
At the end of a weekend the park looks like a bomb has hit it, with discarded bags of rubbish lying around bins like scallies surrounding a newsagents.
Everyone seems to make a beeline for Sefton Park in the summer, and there are endless amounts of festivals, various events and bloody fun runs.
The park’s grassy expanses are perfect for lounging in the summer, but the growth in supermarket booze cruises and portable barbecues rather take their toll on public space in the summer, to my mind.
Liverpool cricket blog
A shameless bit of self-promotion from me with a bit of blurb about a new blog I ‘curate’. I say ‘curate’, but what I mean is that I filled in some forms on Blogger and wrote the initial entries.
It’s loosely based around Sefton Park Cricket club, where I play, and the characters therein but it will probably stray further afield from time to time.
The name, Quis est Porcus?, is a daft stab at the latin for ‘What is ham?’ – a notorious question that has reverberated around the club ever since the question was initially asked.
Quite a few of us are journalists at the club, so it seemed sensible to pool our efforts on a collaborative project.
I was hoping for something in the grand tradition of cricket writing: Jim Swanton, John Arlott, Mike Selvey, Simon Hughes, but I suspect the fogeyish whinging of Bob Willis and Ian Botham are probably closer to the truth.
Daffodils and birdlife: Sefton Park in Spring
Sefton Park is at its most impressive at spring, when it comes into bloom and its thriving wildlife is most evident.
While much of the park still resembles a bomb site, the area near the Field of Hope is thriving, with the daffs coating the ground and the abundance of birdlife heralding the end of winter.
Liverpool One and the recession
I’d suggest that Liverpool watchers should start turning their eyes toward the hallowed gates of Liverpool One over the next few weeks.
It’s the time of the year when commercial rents are due and bets are being taken on which high-street names are likely to go to the big white-washed window in the sky.
For some reason that escapes me, commercial landlords collect payments at quarterly intervals, meaning colossal outgoing for tenants every three months.
Pair that to poor trading conditions, and the fact that the post-Christmas lull is a traditionally-slow one, and you’re going to get casualties.
Snowballs, snowmen and snowpenises: Sefton Park in Winter
We can all get back to being miserable and stressed out tomorrow. For one day the country kicked back and enjoyed itself.
Dogs, squirrels and rats: Sefton Park in the autumn
Simple pleasures, but there’s nothing wrong with that. A walk around Sefton Park followed up with coffee and cake in one of Lark Lane’s eateries and then a roast dinner, is perfect for a frosty Sunday afternoon.