The River Dee
end of an era
StandardSunset on the longest day
Standard500th video- sunset from west Kirby marine lake
Standardbeyond 6th anniversary
StandardIan’s Travelblog Adventures 2017- Where on Earth (and beyond!) is ITA going these Days?
StandardIt’s time to get organised- if I can find the time that is!
He might have gone round the wall, off the reservation, into the great big beyond. Those might be some answers I’d have, if I was being the new Mr. Man character- Mr. Sarcy-pants.
Okay, I will admit the hiking might have seemed to have flown South for the Winter and needs a new GPS system to find its way home again. Not that I’ve given up on it, but time, money (LACK OF BOTH), resources (old boots etc) and work has meant putting updates off time and again, though videos have been pretty-well kept updated, it’s been a nightmare, not quite of Elm Street-proportions, but close enough!
So, I merged both Tiglet’s Travels and ITA last year, creating ‘Tigletverse Travel and Photography’, with one Facebook page (please Like!) and not much up on Pinterest recently. The Blog/Storysite badly needs updating, but I thin I may have found a better page/platform…
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The last time it snowed in March was three years ago!
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Chester-
Halton Castle-
So now I’ve got a rousing chorus of ‘In the bleak midwinter’ going round my head like a faulty record player!
I suppose I’d new pictures before this lot melts then hadn’t I??
On the Road with Jack K
StandardCame across an interesting quote from Jack Kerouac, who I have never really read before, so I’ll be looking to read On the Road at some point.
BLOGGERVERSARY SPECIAL IS UPLOADED!
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So, the Anniversary video has been completed and uploaded to my Youtube channel, took me blinkin’ long enough!
Five years since I began the main blog and three and a half years since I began Travel blogging,
I even used The Mona Lisa Twins version of ‘These Boots are made for Walking’ as the theme, along with shots of my boots along the Sandstone Trail, Rhyl beach and paths
Then one of the first pictures from Corwen in Wales, looking over Caer Drewyn from Pen-Y-Pig.
Next is a clip from the trailer to Pirateez, the short serial I devised in 2013. There had been a Professional Storyteller in School, Richard O’Neil, leading a storytelling fortnight. I vaguely recall him saying something along the lines of stories are everywhere, you just have to use whatever’s at hand. What was at hand were Pirate figures and when I got home I found my Nephew’s Pirate ship and a pop-up pirate figure, so locked myself in the bathroom for an afternoon and shot the photos for all six stories. I had made a half-hearted attempt at photo-storytelling for the First Series of Tiglet’s Time Travels and was preparing ideas for Series 2, but this was unprecedented and led to an explosion of creativity, including my first hiking videos at Half-Term.
Next is a recent scene of going over the River Weaver at Sunrise.
One of the very best things that I have ever filmed was the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic in Liverpool. (Oh yes, I noticed quite a few things shot in Liverpool or Chester on this New trailer!) Catching the flyby of the Spitfire and the Hurricane was an awesome moment, one of my best shots ever. You have to appreciate the irony, because I been over at Camell Laird on board the HMS Edinburgh not half an hour earlier, so getting from there to Pierhead, which was extremely packed and then finding a brilliant vantage point was pretty brilliant, even for me.
While you could say that was more luck than skill, seeing and getting some an epic shot of Birds of Prey at the edge of Delamere Forest just outside of the village of Kingsley was a dynamic combination of both.
It had been a brief encounter on the fifth of August, but getting back on the eighth made it so much better, though there were issues around focussing and the pan and zoom, but I managed to stay with all three birds, which I am now convinced are Peregrine Falcons not Eagles! So this is the first of two clips following them.
A picture from the Queens Diamond Jubilee in Widnes follows, then a ferry across the Mersey at Sunset in January 2014.
If the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic was the Best Film of 2013, then the Giants in Liverpool are top contenders for the best of 2014. This short clip shows Grandma and the efforts of the crew making her walk. Now that is the kind of puppeteering on a Harryhausen scale that I’d love to do!
New Brighton, on the Wirral peninsula, is another great place to go. I’ve been in the sunshine and the rain, but not in the snow, well, not yet anyway!
I think it is the fact that I tagged it as Deadly 60 that the Scorpion vs Tarantula video is my most popular video, with over 2k views. It’s bizarre, well, at least to me, that doing something to keep the Nephew’s entertained on Christmas Day turns out be the most watched video, out of the nearly-two hundred I’ve made. Well bizarre. But then entertaining my Nephew’s is my main motivation for most of what I make anyway!
The Duke of Alexander is a ship beached at Mostyn Docks in between Greenfield and Mostyn on the Welsh side of the River Dee.
Pex Hill is a good, local hike and I’ve been up there many times. It was the very first I videoblogged in 2013, having been up and taken pictures in 2012.
I don’t know why the sight of a rope turned a bunch of youth workers into wanna-be Tarzans, but my half-hearted attempt (More like LAME!) has its own entertainment value, I think!
Note- Bobbie Wright went onto represent Great Britain in the Special Olympics World Summer Games 2015. He only went and won a GOLD MEDAL!!!
Pontcysyllte Aquaduct was the first shot of 2012, which is when I went a bit mad on hiking photos, especially in the summer. I think I took a record 350 in two days on the Bridgewater Canal Megahike from Runcorn all the way to Manchester! What a record!
Triumph of the Daleks is a story I’ve wanted to do for a long time. September 2014 I finally completed it, sharing it in PDF format on Tiglets story site, which means Infinite Whoniverse is now a year old! Yet another significant achievement!
At Rhyl Marine Lake, there’s a whole section on the different kinds of Crabs and, just like at West Kirby Marine Lake, someone was happy to show me what they had caught, looking like some kind of Doctor-Who like monster in the murk!
Speaking of Doctor Who, while at Mersey Comic Con, I bumped into Comic book legend Tim Quinn who enthused about his comic strips and several bands, inviting me to go down to the Cavern Club, somewhere I hadn’t been in years. The Mona Lisa Twins were the first band I saw In July, a whole month after hearing about them, Can’t buy me love is the second track featured.
One of the best things about Facebook is the way you can get invited to events and so a BBQ at Ignite saw me trekking round Hale Head and getting a burger at the end, not very often that happens on a hike, I can tell you that!
The boat had a hole in the bottom anyway, so couldn’t have sailed that down the Mersey, even if I wanted to!
Oh dear- the Tiggletime stories. Well, erm, what can I say? Sorry? It was some kind of misguided attempt to do some kind of Children’s picture-book storytelling, but seemed more miss than hit! The Chocolate Killer was a poem I had performed at Chester Literature Festival in 2011 and using the Cluedo board seemed a perfect fit. I only made five of those videos and still unsure whether to try it again, ah well.
You know sometimes you think that you’ve bitten off way more than you can chew? I am starting to think that maybe the case with Star trek Preservation – My fanfilm trailers following the Timeship Enterprise. I’ve made two trailers and begun planning a third for Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary next year, but can’t seem to get anyone interested. I’ve pitched it to CBS, Paramount, Renegades and shared it on every Star Trek group on Facebook, but got zip interest in it.
Maybe the answer lies in the Dark side of the Force!
I thought I was going dizzy when I spotted two Darth Vader’s while queuing up for Mersey Comic Con, held at the University of Liverpool, a place I hung around for a while a few years ago or so.
It was such an amazing and memorable day and I can’t wait for the second one coming this November!!
Moel Famau, snow-capped as seen from Chester gets a brief view before I revisit the Giants with the Dog and Girl.
Infinite Whoniverses- Series 3 promo- I’m already thinking of Series 4, so doing some big foreshadowing in the last two episodes- And heading for one doozy of a cliff-hanger ending, something I haven’t done before for IW.
The Wedding video of Pete and Dorcas Swann at Leasowe Lighthouse July 14- I’d been invited to two weddings, both of them on the SAME day! I went to Rachel’s in Chester in the Afternoon, then zoomed up to New Brighton and walked up to the Lighthouse for Pete’s Reception.
The Solar Eclipse- Almost missed it, it was very quick, but got a great shot, of a smiling Sun!
The Woozie Wonderland with Rudolph the red-nosed-Reindeer. Oh dear- another Christmas video, trying to do an Elvis/DJ voice and failing miserably! Using a Christmas stocking as a puppet wasn’t my best idea, well, wasn’t worst anyway, not by a long shot!
Which brings me to the Grumpy Cats- Two hecklers/moaners like Waldorf and Statler from the original Muppet show- I can’t say they worked that well, but the Tiglet Show was an experiment, and that’s all I have to say about that! (As Forest Gump used to say!)
2015 has brought many brilliant shots, one of my favourites being the Birds of Prey I spotted at the edge of Delamere at the beginning of August. I wasn’t quite quick enough with my camera on the fifth, so went back on the eighth and oh, boy! Did I get some fantastic footage! It made the Pain of getting my legs lacerated to ribbons by the Field of Hell at Newton worthwhile (Must share that vid- just as a warning to other hikers!)
I made a story trailer for the original Youtube channel trailer in summer 2013, and last year began a second trailer, this very fast clip shows several posters/covers for a number of stories- Tiglet’s Time Travels Series 5/Tiggletime- the Parachute Monster/the Guardians of Zyonia/Ewan the Supersheep and Superthunderman’s Adventures in Partyland- a short stop-motion film made in Holiday club 2013.
Lining up to get aboard the HMS Edinburgh, not a bad shot, even if I do say so myself!
Ignite Pancake Party- oh dear, should have gone for a second take on that one, the smoke alarm going off didn’t help either.
Mr Tiglet getting drenched for the Ice Bucket Challenge- oh dear me!
While Mersey Comic Con was my First Comic book convention, the Big Geek Meet in Liverpool I wasn’t sure of, but ended up gravitating towards the Doctor Who Cosplayers and was just such fun!
I’ve lost track of the laps I’ve made of the Roman Walls of Chester. This was the end of a particularly zany day and my commentary on the shenanigans of the Seagulls reflects that.
Infinite Whoniverses- Last of the Timeladies- Enemies of the Timeladies is a short film made in March, an interesting experiment, which made great use of sound effects, the space battle is between the Alliance and Centuroid Armada.
Which leads into my favourite set from the Mona Lisa Twins, Johnny B Goode, a classic Chuck Berry track gets a fantastic treatment, even better than Marty McFly in Back to the Future!
STOP THE PRESS- hot off the editing suite, the first glimpse of the Timeship Enterprise! Now I’ve got to do something more, no choice now.
The Grumpy Cats say goodbye in their own imitable style- cracking a joke at Tiglet’s expense!
Then it all ends with a Sunset, one of the many I’ve taken over the past few years
So there we go, off on another Hiking Adventure, doing some Creative filmmaking and storytelling along the way.
What these clips represent are Milestones on the Journey, there are more to come, just not sure how to develop a few. Like developing The Tiglet Show- I think I am finally ready to launch the sequel to Tiglet’s Time Travels this Autumn. Now that might be interesting!
Ian's TravelBlog Adventures! 