Mini-Photo TR: A Christmas Wonderland!

[JayTricky]

Well, you know Christmas is coming when the downtown decorations are up, the smells from the market stalls catch your senses, and Paul McCartney's 'Wonderful Christmas time' is playing and echoing around the street. I thought I'd share a few photos with you all, that not only made me chuckle, but made me wish I was a kid again!

 

A beautifully cold day in Nottingham, hundreds of people lining the streets doing their shopping, and an exceptionally small but surprising fairground in the middle of the town square just popped out of nowhere as I turned the streets - and I couldn't resist walking through. To my surprise, there was a quite tall, and fast, Star Flyer. Bearing in mind it's around 0 degrees (celcius), I thought I'd give this freeze machine a miss for today. But the beautiful merry go-round was worth a go, and provided a few laughs for me and my family.

 

Many stalls of different foods and nik-naks filled the street, and I even got to taste an ostrich burger (which was delicious I might add). The Cadbury hot chocolate stand was popular, with the option of having a 'flake' coming out of the top. How could I resist a flake?

 

The Reindeer Steeplechase (see what I did there?) was amusing to say the least. Could you imagine Blackpool replacing the horses with Reindeer for Christmas? Mwaha... and as for the Friar Tuck themed bar, well, that was the perfect end to a nice wander around this Christmas Wonderland.

 

I hope you enjoy the photos that I managed to take, apologies for the lack of quality.

'A Christmas Wonderland'. With a classic carousel to start off with. I couldn't resist.

So the tune that was being played from the merry go-round was a sort of polyphonic carousel-like version of 'Circle of life'.

Always got time for a ride or two.

Town hall with Xmas decorations. Looks nice indeed.

The tree is up! But the lights haven't officially been turned on yet!

The Star Flyer from a distance.

Do you think this ride is compensating for something?

It looked bloody freezing up there!

I wouldn't want to get stuck on this. Bearing in mind how many are stalling lately, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened. Human icicles anyone?

Looks quite majestic with town hall in the background.

REINDEER STEEPLECHASE CREDIT. *giggity*

I can't name all of the Reindeer. There's Rudolph, and erm, Dancer, Prancer and erm... Dave?

Santa may need these back pretty soon.

Giant snow globe alert!

Result! Petty my phone died before I could take any pictures from inside. Had myself a lovely Newcastle Brown Ale and a mince pie. Hearty hearty food. Jolly jolly and all that.

 

I hope you enjoyed the few photos I took!

[cfc]

I like local Christmas celebrations like this--thanks for the pictures. What does Friar Tuck drink for Christmas?

[simon8899]

At Hansa-Park is asked the operator after the Star-Flyer stalled all the way up - it took about 5 minutes to get us down. The ops said that it's a seldom computer hickup - you have to reboot the control system and then everything returns to normal.

 

Have seen the same for the HUSS Condor if its on an automatic program. The ops has to switch to manual control, lower the gondolas and the reboot the control system to use the automatic program again.

 

So mostly its just a computer glitch which can be solved fast and save. The manual safeties kick in and stop the ride were it is so every rider is save until the control computer takes over again.

 

One should not miss a Star-Flyer as the views are mostly amazing!

[JayTricky]

I like local Christmas celebrations like this--thanks for the pictures. What does Friar Tuck drink for Christmas?

 

I'd like to think he was a whiskey drinker. Though the thought of Friar Tuck and alcohol just reminds me of the Disney animated movie where the snake gets stuck in the barrel and comes out wasted.