Not Even Doom Music

Just a quick post to say that you can pre-order the 10" of the new Mat Riviere album Not Even Doom Music NOW. When you pre-order you get to download it straight away and then you'll get your record some time in April, apparently. Buy buy buy!

I am not going to try and review it or anything but it is proper good. Breathtakingly good, even. It has been on a constant loop here since pre-orders became available a week ago. I'm proposing that we now treat December 21st as Not Even Doom Music day from now on, an annual celebration of a flipping great album. And if you buy it in the next couple of days you get some free stuff too. Click on the album title up there for more details!

Here's a trailer for the album that Mat posted on Vimeo a while ago:




S

Handmade Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you had a dead nice Christmas Day and that the rest of the festive season is just as enjoyable for you. This year we made a conscious decision to try and buy a few more handmade Christmas presents than we have previously, so we thought we'd fill you in on the things we picked up. Sadly we were so impatient to get things wrapped up and ready for Christmas that we missed our chance to take photographs of them. As a result, all the photos in this post have been stolen from the internet.

We sold some things at the Inprint Fair in Liverpool at the start of December. We shared a stall with the amazing zine/comic maker Stef Bradley who we mentioned on here a while ago. She has an exciting new blog now which you should definitely have a look at.

One of the other sellers at the fair was Caroline Dowsett, who is pretty flipping great too. She does all kinds of neato illustrations and she is based here in Manchester. I bought one of these 'Murray Christmas' cards for Liz's mum from her. I'm not sure Liz's mum really knows who Bill Murray is, but her surname is Murray so I think she appreciated it on a different level. I also bought Liz a notepad with cats printed on the cover, which is also absolutely amazing.

When I got home I looked at Caroline's Etsy page and decided that Liz would probably also like a print of Woody Allen too. I had to stop myself from buying everything in her shop! If you like Bill Murray or Wes Anderson films, you should have a look IMMEDIATELY. You won't be disappointed.

After buying the cat notebook, I decided to get Liz some ace cat tattoos that she'd been eyeing up on Etsy for a while. They are made by super duper illustrator Harriet Gray who has an Etsy shop full of wonderful things like these and this. You can get one for £2.50 or you can choose 3 for £5.50, which is a pretty sweet deal. I also bought a pencil case with cats on it which is also great.

Carrying on with the tattoo theme, we bought our friend some tattoos from Laura Gee's Etsy shop. She has a whole range of lovely prints and cushions that are definitely worth a look too.

So what did you get for Christmas? Between us we received a truck full of sweets and generally unhealthy things, I got loads of socks (Which is good, because I can never be bothered to go and buy my own socks) and Liz got me a copy of Dead Snow on DVD, the plot of which, on IMDB, is described as: "A ski vacation turns horrific for a group of medical students, as they find themselves confronted by an unimaginable menace: Nazi zombies". I am very excited about watching it. FYI, the zombies in this movie are fast zombies, not your standard shuffling ones. Apparently the speed that zombies can move at is a contentious issue. Terrifying.

Happy New Year!

S

Cheesed Off

I have this amazing idea for a restaurant/bar type place that would specialise in cheese boards and other cheese related foodstuffs (Welsh rarebit, cauliflower cheese, that kind of thing). But that's not all. Borrowing slightly from Meatball Shop in New York, the premise would involve people ticking off the cheeses they want on a betting shop style coupon and then handing it over at the bar. Then their chosen selection of cheeses (or other cheese related foodstuff) would be prepared and taken to their table. If anybody wants to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds into this extremely niche and unprofitable business idea, let me know.

Until then, I'll have to make do with ordering my cheese boards in non-specialist eateries without being able to use a coupon to make my cheese preferences known. Bakerie, on Lever Street, does a pretty good cheese board. We went there a while ago and you get three cheeses (from about six different options), mini gherkins, pickled onions and some dead nice bread and it is flipping great (grate?). They do a meat board too, if you don't like cheese very much. Although if that is the case I'm not really sure why you have bothered to read up to this point.

Recently we went to Marble Brewery's 57 Thomas Street. I have decided that developing a penchant for real ale would really round off my 'look' (cringe). Still, no matter how hard I try, it always tastes a bit gross to me. So the fact that they do a cheese board gave me the opportunity to simultaneously try and make myself like beer while enjoying some amazing cheeses.

I can't remember what beer we had, but I actually quite enjoyed it! I think if I persevere I might actually develop a taste for it. Fingers crossed. Anyway, as the photo above clearly shows, they have a pretty massive collection of cheeses to choose from.

We went for the 9 cheeses for £10.95 between us, although I can't remember for the life of me what we ordered. Some kind of brie, the blue Cheshire, a crumbly Lancashire of some description and uh, other ones. The Bath Oliver biscuits were incredible, as was the pickle that came with it. My mouth is watering as I type.  We had a kind of smoky flavoured cheddar amongst the nine, and that was probably my favourite. They were all absolutely delicious though. Cheese!

Feel free to share your favourite cheeses below, don't keep your top fromage tips to yourself!

See yer!

S

Today by Stef Bradley

Last weekend we took our stuff to sell at the Leeds Zine Fair. It was alright! We sold quite a bit of stuff and spoke to some nice people and generally had a pretty good time. While we were having a look round the other stalls, we came across the amazing Today zine, which is written by Stef Bradley, and we liked it so much that we thought we'd devote an entire post to it. Here is that post.

Today is a comic of sorts, full of dead funny drawings that document what its creator thinks about on a day-to-day basis. From silverfish infestations and poems about winter being absolutely bobbins to the awkward situations that ensue when you take over a recently deceased person's job. It's all there. If I was writing for a high brow publication, I might describe it as a 'celebration of the minutiae of everyday life'. That's right! The minutiae!

Here's a bit of Today volume one for you to have a look at. Stef was selling the first two volumes of the zine in a pencil case type thing for FIVE POUNDS (Keep reading for sample photo of that). Bargain! We bought one and read and re-read both volumes on the way home. Liz can't even read on public transport without feeling sick but she flipping well had a go, such was her desperation to have another look.

By the time we had arrived back home, our zine super fandom had reached fever pitch. The first thing we did  was try and look for the zine on the internet. 'Surely there must be some kind of web presence for such a talent?' said neither of us. Sadly this turned out not to be the case, so we were unable to do any kind of research (Hence the poor quality of this post). So then we just had to send an overenthusiastic email to Stef, just to let her know how great her zines are. Not only did she reply, she actually sent us a free copy of the third instalment of Today! Amazing. Here's a photo with all three volumes of the zine (In order!) and the pencil case thing that comes with the first two.

As mentioned above, there's no website/blog/anything for Today at the moment. You can, however, buy stuff from Stef by emailing her if you like! Just send orders and compliments to stef bradley at live dot co dot uk and I'm sure you'll be able to come to some kind of agreement. Alternatively, you'll be able to buy the zine at the Inprint Liverpool Print Fair, which is going to be at the Shipping Forecast pub on December 9th. And in even more exciting news, she's going to be sharing a stall with us! You'll only need to visit one stall to buy all your zine related Christmas presents.

In other news, you can buy the new issue of Young Explorer on our Etsy now. It's got Phil Elverum, Haiku Salut, buses, illustrations, a competition (!) and a thing I wrote about my grandad's record collection that, if you squint, could almost be described as 'poignant'. Get on it, or something like that.

See yer!

S

Manchester Print Fair and New Etsy Things!

I am writing this post very quickly as we need to leave to go to the Manchester Print Fair in about ten minutes. I just thought I'd quickly update all of you on the new stuff we have in our shop! We're debuting the second issue of the zine today, which includes all kinds of exciting things like: Phil Elverum, Haiku Salut and the Manchester Transport Museum. 

We've also got some sexy owl greetings cards available, and, some owl badges too. The owl badges will be available to buy irl today, but you'll have to wait until next week to buy them online. Here's a picture of all the owl related things we have:

So either come down to 2022NQ today, or head over to our Etsy to get spending your hard earned.

See yer!

S

How are you feeling?

Yesterday we went to see David Shrigley's new exhibition 'How Are You Feeling?' at the Cornerhouse. We went to see his exhibition 'Brain Activity' at the Hayward Gallery in London, which the Daily Mail called 'the sickest art show ever', in February, and it was well worth the entrance money. While the exhibition at the Cornerhouse wasn't quite as big, it was FREE. The best price.

There was no taxidermy this time, with the exhibition mainly consisting of loads and loads of the drawings that he's most famous for. All the favourites were there, plus tonnes of stuff that I'd never seen before. We particularly enjoyed this one:

And here's a photo of me looking dead serious and that.

There's other stuff too. There's a couple of nap stations in case you get tired while you're making your way around the gallery. There's a short and funny animation. There's a giant naked man who, rather creepily, blinks and urinates into a bucket every now and again. Visitors are encouraged to take a seat and sketch him, like you would a life model, but we didn't have time and I can't draw so we skipped that part.

There was also a gong that you could have a go on, which was too good an opportunity to pass up.

There's all kinds of things going on around the exhibition too. Check the Cornerhouse's website for different events, although the Harry Hill guided tours of the exhibition have sold out now. Rubbish. If you're lucky enough to be able to get into town at 2pm on a Wednesday, Bakerie are selling David Shrigley Anti-Psychotic Brain Bread for the duration of the exhibition. They're baking 13 loaves a week and they're £5 each. I'm hoping to figure out a way of getting one!

The exhibition is on until January 6th, and, as mentioned previously, it's free!

See yer!

S

Threaderal Government pt. 1: William Taft

For my birthday, Liz's ace sister and incredible husband bought me THIS. It has loads of amazing posters from US presidential elections from the last 200 years in it. It is pretty amazing. As there's an election coming up very shortly, I've decided to embroider portraits of some of my favourite presidents and presidential candidates* from the 20th century.

This chap here is supposed to be William Taft, who served as president between 1909 and 1913. From what I've read about him before, he seems to have been a reasonably un-evil type bloke, but he wasn't a particularly memorable president. That said, he is the fattest ever president, which is pretty good going. Wikipedia reckons that he once got stuck in his bath tub and his staff had to come and use butter to dislodge him. Unpleasant mental image whether it's true or not.

Another fact I like about William Taft is that a town called Moron, which had been burnt down and rebuilt after a fire, was renamed Taft in his honour. Apparently the word 'moron' wasn't a derogatory term when they named it. But we can ignore that bit, can't we?

Anyway, feel free to suggest other presidents/presidential candidates for me to have a go at. I'm thinking of doing Eugene Debs next, because then I don't have to faff around with embroidering loads of hair and stuff.

*Note: this does not necessarily mean that I agree with their views, it might just be that I think they were funny looking or something daft like that.

See yer!

S

Morecambe

A couple of weeks back we decided we'd go and spend our weekend in Morecambe. We've both always wanted to stay at the newly renovated Midland Hotel, and they had a deal on dinner, bed and breakfast. And the food was supposed to be amazing. And I'd never been to Morecambe before, but Steve had and he's very much a fan.

We seem to spend a lot of time at the seaside, don't we? I'm not really sure how Morecambe compares with Cleethorpes and Southport, two other seaside towns we've visited recently. Morecambe is a bit more depressing I think. But there's nothing wrong with spending a weekend in an eerily deserted seaside town at the end of the summer season. If anything, it's better when there's less people around!

The giant polo thing in the photo on the right is one of the last remaining rides in the now abandoned theme park on Morecambe sea front. Wikipedia says that it was a Noel's House Party/Mr Blobby themed amusement park, which is probably why it was abandoned.

The meal at the hotel was incredible. I'll talk you through what I had. Starter! Scallops with bacon, peas, pea puree and a sauce that I don't remember. It doesn't look very appetising but it was really quite nice.

Scallops!

Lamb!

The lamb we both had for our main course was even more amazing. The tasty bit of meat in the middle is lamb rump, the wheel things around it are lamb confit belly (!) and then there's some borlotti beans, broad beans and peas in a rosemary sauce. Probably one of the best things I've ever eaten.

Trio of berry desserts!

Dessert was pretty excellent, too. Steve had a cheese board and I had the collection of berry desserts, which consisted of (going clockwise!) an elderflower and blackberry jelly, a raspberry mousse and a summer fruits pudding. Complete with fancy fruity swirl on the plate. Swish-o!

The next day we went to a little vintage shop/tea room called Dotty's Vintage. They had some lovely clothes for sale, but we were there for the tea room really. We had a lovely pot of tea and some cherry and almond scones. Yum!

Sadly it was absolutely chucking it down on the Sunday, so, after sitting in a shelter and watching the waves crashing against the sea wall for a bit, we made a hasty retreat and went back to Manchester. Morecambe's really nice! I think I'd like to go back again, possibly in the summer when it's not so grim looking.

Bye!

L x

Pony Chops Giveaway

In case you haven't seen us advertising this on Twitter, the super blog Pony Chops is giving away one of the large embroidered badges from our shop! Click on the picture below to have a look at how you go about entering. I think entries close on Monday, so you'd better get a wriggle on.

S

Lancaster Creative Market

Last weekend, in an attempt to get really rich, we went over to Lancaster to sell things at the Lancaster Creative Market. And to see our friend Rebecca, who has been mentioned already in countless blog posts, who lives there. Neither of us had been to Lancaster for a while so, as well as being excited about selling things at the market, we were looking forward to having a look around town too.

Our (extremely full) table

There were lots of super nice stalls there. Reloved At Home was selling loads of amazing recycled things, like dolls and decorations. There was a woman offering massages! And a nice old man who was selling pottery that he'd made himself at home. 

The extremely good The Make District were behind our favourite stall. The Make District is a collaborative effort between three different Lancaster makers, Coo and Co, Little Lost Soul and Strange Bird Designs. 

As you can see, they had some very pretty things for sale. We'd advise you to pop over to their website and buy as much as you can afford. I'll definitely be having a look when I get paid next! As well as being dead talented and that, they're also lovely people. They were extremely supportive and enthusiastic about the things we were selling, which was very encouraging. They even agreed to pose for this photo, complete with the copies of Young Exlorer issue one that they'd bought.

It was a lovely day, all in all. We sold quite a few things (Our cards were especially popular) and we spoke to some very nice people. Definitely worth going. And then we had a dead nice time in Lancaster too. We stayed at Rebecca's house and then went for breakfast at the Whale Tail Cafe, which is a vegetarian cafe in the middle of Lancaster. And very tasty it was too.

Remember to go and have a look on our Etsy and buy some things! Also, I can't remember if this has been mentioned already, but we're making an appearance at the Manchester Print Fair at the end of October. Last week we were their featured seller, which was exciting. Go and have a look on their Facebook and mark yourself down as attending. We're going to have issue one and two for sale, as well as an A6 zine about boats, some greetings cards and other bits and bobs for sale. 

Alright then, see yer!

L + S

Embroidered Badges!

You can now buy these amazing hand embroidered badges on our Etsy! They're pretty reasonably priced and they'll definitely brighten up your day. If you don't want to faff around with Etsy, send us an email at youngexplorerzine@gmail.com. Or if you want to come and talk to us/pay with hard cash, you'll find us at the Lancaster Creative Market on Saturday September 22nd.

Cheers

S + E

It's a Disgrace, Joe

Fuchsia MacAree is a mad talented Irish illustrator who currently lives in London. She is sickeningly talented, in fact, and she has stuff to sell on her website, which you should definitely visit now instead of reading the rest of this post.

We recently purchased a copy of her new zine 'It's a Disgrace, Joe', a 16 page zine full of dead good illustrations. The Joe in question, apparently, is the host of an Irish radio phone-in show called 'Liveline' and the zine is full of the kind of mad things that people say when they're given the opportunity to talk on the radio. Although I hope they're at least slightly exaggerated. My favourites are 'They've employed horses in the hospitals, Joe' and the gritty 'They're selling vodka in the nurseries, Joe' which features children drinking from bottles of Smirnoff.

I spent much of my teen years listening to talk radio programs, all of which seemed to attract largely right wing/paranoid/mentally unstable callers, especially the ones that were on after midnight. I'm not really sure why I did this instead of doing normal teenage boy things, but it seemed like a good use of my time. Anyway, that's not really important, what's important is that 'It's a Disgrace Joe' is great, and well worth €5 of your money.

You can look at more of Fuchsia's stuff on her website, including some amazing prints that you can buy and some more example spreads from the zine. You should also follow her on Twitter, if you're into that kind of thing.

Cheers

S

New Shop Stuff!

Check out the new cards we've got for sale in our ETSY SHOP! Then buy them! If you don't particularly like Etsy, send us an email at youngexplorerzine@gmail.com and we can come to some other kind of arrangement if you like. You can still buy our badges and zines and things there too. And next week we're launching some embroidered badges for you to spend your cash on too. Here's a sneaky preview.

Left: Bear, fox, cloud, badger, mountain
Right: Small cloud, small bear, small mountain, small badger, small fox, acorn

S

Gig Frenzy

Most evenings we find ourselves going to bed at 10pm. If we don't get our eight hours sleep then we're both liable to be extremely grumpy for much of the day after, so we haven't been going to many night time things for a while. However, the last eight or nine days or so have seen us go to THREE gigs! We've made the conscious decision to do more fun stuff and to hell with the horrifying fatigue related consequences. Here's what we went to!

I've wanted to see Grandaddy for ages and ages. They were one of the first 'good' bands that I liked, just as I was coming out of my ska/pop-punk phase. I didn't get to see them before they broke up so I'd resigned myself to the fact that I'd never see them live. And then earlier this year it was announced that they were coming back! Last week we went to see them at the (HMV) Ritz in Manchester, which isn't as glamorous as it sounds. I've embedded a Grandaddy video up there ^. They didn't play that song, possibly because it's not one of their finest moments, and also because it's really Jason Lytle solo rather than an actual Grandaddy song. It's a good video though!

I was prepared to be extremely disappointed by their live performance. Possibly because I vaguely remember the internet saying they weren't a great live band, possibly because I'm pessimistic like that. Anyway, they were really good! They missed a few songs that I would have liked to see live, but you know, you can't have everything can you? They did a cover of Here by Pavement, too, which was nice.

The day after we'd planned to go and see the super trendy Grimes at Sound Control. And then we realised the gig had been moved to the Ritz and then the lack of sleep from the night before started to kick in and we decided we'd rather stay at home. At about 9pm we changed our minds and decided that, as part of our new fun loving attitudes, we'd go mad and go to our second gig in two days. Mental.

After queuing for about half an hour to get in, we made our way to the balcony so we could get a decent view of what was going on. It was great! We pioneered a new type of dance that was perfect for Grimes, but it was extremely strenuous in the knee area. Maybe one day we'll post a video tutorial or something.

Then, just over a week later we went to see indie pop band Allo Darlin' at the Deaf Institute. Once upon a time I used to make rubbishy music and I'd supported Allo Darlin' at a Pull Yourself Together gig at Fuel in Withington. Now they're playing real venues and doing European tours and getting played on the radio and stuff. Wow! I'd like to say that it could have been me, but that would be a lie. Allo Darlin' are actually good! I hadn't seen them for a while and the news songs they played were super fun. Go and see them if you get the chance!

In other news, we're going to be launching some new stuff to buy in our Etsy shop very soon! Liz has made some lovely things that you'll be itching to spend your hard earned cash on, so keep your eyes peeled on our Twitter for updates, ta.

See yer.

S

Sneaky peek!

We've been working on the next issue of Young Explorer over the last couple of weeks and we thought we'd give you an exclusive (!) look at the front cover to whet your appetite and that. Stuff to expect includes: Phil Elverum, Haiku Salut, buses and dodgy record collections. Oh yeah, the theme is 'collecting'!

S

Rochdale Canal Festival

This year's Rochdale Canal Festival has, for the first time, been extended into Manchester city centre. The Rochdale Canal comes into Manchester just across the road from where we live, so we've been taking advantage of some of the things that have been organised as part of the festival. Best of all, it's all been free!

On Thursday evening we popped over to the car park on Ducie Street to watch a screening of the Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic. The film was projected against the wall of a multi-storey car park and there were deckchairs available for people to sit and watch. You could also park your car up and tune into the audio for the film through your car's FM radio. We arrived a little later than planned so we had to make do with a bench.

I'm a big fan of The Life Aquatic but I hadn't seen it for a while. I quickly remembered why I'd liked it so much. It's funny without being completely daft, poignant at times without being too schmaltzy, and it has Jeff Goldblum and Bill Murray in it. What more could you want?

The amazing Malaysian restaurant Ning were also there, serving food from a little marquee. I had the Kuey Teow Goreng, which is a mix of chicken, beansprouts and thick noodles in a slightly spicy chilli sauce. Liz had the Chicken Lime Curry and we both shared some lamb samosas and vegetable spring rolls. Pretty tasty stuff. I think we're going to pop over to Ning at some point soon hopefully!

Also as part of the festival, artist Kerry Howarth has yarn bombed the Brewer Street Bridge over the canal. We saw her the day before busy tying all the bits of yarn to the railings as it was starting to rain. We think it looks great! Definitely worth all the hard work. It looks like extra bits are been added too, although it might just be us not noticing things the first time round.

LomoWall is a new permanent lomography exhibition on Tariff Street. It's made up of loads of photographs taken on lomography cameras and you can see a little bit of it in the photo underneath. If you click on the bit that says LomoWall back there <--- you can watch a video of it being put together.

It's not too late to go and have a look yourself! The LomoWall and the floating garden at Jackson's Wharf (Which we don't have a photo of!) are permanent and free, so you can go and see them any time you like. Also, I've just seen that there's a BBQ at New Islington Marina on Sunday, after moaning about not being able to eat barbecued food in the last post. There's loads of other stuff going on as well, between midday and 4pm. LOOK AT THIS FOR MORE INFO.

See yer.

S

Tea Party

On Sunday we had a vegan tea party for our lovely friend Rebecca's birthday. We tried to make lots of nice food that she'd like which included a homemade carrot cake, Moomin shortbread and a whole host of different vegetables. We also made soy and balsamic glazed tofu, which was alright! I think next time I'd use more soy sauce than balsamic vinegar though. It was a bit too zingy for me (That's a professional chef term, by the way).

We watched the film Practical Magic, which wasn't the whimsical children's film that I was expecting, and then we went for a walk along the canal. We were hoping that we'd be able to have a picnic somewhere, but yet again the Manchester weather foiled our plans. Stupid weather! The tea party was nice though. 

We're determined to have either a picnic or a barbecue before the end of the summer but we're quickly running out of time. If anyone reading this is planning one of the above, invite us please! 

S

Solva Mill

We have just returned from a holiday in Tenby, Pembrokeshire. Although we didn't get the best of weather we both had a wonderful time. There will be another post about our Tenby fun when we get the photographs back from Boots. Something to look forward to!

On the way home from Tenby we called in at Solva Mill just outside of St David's. Solva mill is the oldest working woollen mill in Pembrokeshire, which is still using traditional shuttle looms to produce their cloth. I had spotted it when I was on work experience at Melin Tregwynt (another woollen mill) earlier this year. However, I didn't finish work early enough to visit so it was a real treat to get the chance to return and I wasn't disappointed! Not just is it set in beautiful surroundings but it is also producing wonderful Welsh woven fabric. I would highly recommend a visit.

E x

Southport Fun!

How much fun can two people possibly have? It must seem, to you outsiders, like our lives are spent constantly visiting places that aren't Manchester and having a nice time. That's not quite true, but a week after going to Liverpool and Llangollen, we made the trip over to Southport.

Ostensibly the trip was for a football match. I support Grimsby Town, for my sins, and have spent the last 15 or so years of my life being repeatedly disappointed by them. Don't worry, this isn't a post about football. To make the idea of going to see rubbish football more appealing, we decided we'd make a day of it and invite Liz's sister and brand new husband (Remember they recently got married and Liz made a blanket for them? Corresponding blog post here) along to share the misery.

Obviously no trip to the seaside is complete without a game of crazy golf. Initial fears that the course might not be particularly crazy were allayed when we saw the obligatory windmill on the third hole. We both found the course quite challenging and finished comfortably in the bottom two places in the standings.

Liz managed to get a fantastic hole-in-one on one of the more tricky holes, whereas my performance was fairly terrible throughout. Liz's sister came out on top by being consistently alright, rather than being a dead talented crazy golfer. Although I might be saying that because I'm a poor loser.

We recently popped over to Project Atelier to have a go on their rowing boats but, sadly, they'd had to be locked away due to some 'unsocial behaviour'. Hopefully they'll be back out again soon! After this disappointment we jumped at the chance to go on the swan pedalos in Southport. Up there's a shot of them in the distance, all lined up and waiting to be pedalled.

Liz and her brother-in-law were in charge of pedalling and, after about ten minutes, were suffering from severe leg cramps, leaving us floating aimlessly around the boating lake. A swan in distress. The weather was nice though and it was quite pleasant just floating around on our own (We were the only swan in action). Eventually the pedallers managed to summon up the energy and leg strength to propel us back to shore safely.

After that we went and got some amazing ice cream (More on that in a later post) and then went to the football, which was about twenty minutes walk from the town centre. The match was predictably dull and any pre-season excitement had well and truly disappeared by the end of a disappointing 1-1 draw.

The result didn't matter too much, though. We'd had a lovely day in Southport despite the football. The next time we go and see Grimsby play I think we'll try and organise something actually enjoyable around the match again.

S