When I saw my college friends Gill and Andy over in NZ, Gill said that she was coming over to the UK in October with their youngest son, Calum. Well, suddenly it's October already and I met them over in Portsmouth tonight. This is Portsmouth...
...and it's a view of it you couldn't get until Tuesday of this week. When this opened...
Five years late. But quite impressive...
...which isn't bad when you consider that not long ago, it looked like this...
Anyway, enough of that. It officially opened on Tuesday and in true British style, the scenic glass lift broke down and stranded some dignitaries. The Great Glass Elevator still isn't open, but the ordinary one was open, so up we went...
They checked us to make sure we weren't terrorists...
...and then there we were, with panoramic (nearly, I'd estimate about 270°...anorak) views of Portsmouth!
...and bits of Gosport, where Gill and Andy used to live.
The second echo of New Zealand is that it's a bit like the Sky Tower in Auckland, and has a glass floor. Bigger than the one in the Sky Tower and the biggest one in Europe. Here are some people trying it...
(You have to take your shoes off, but are obviously allowed to keep your crime-against-fashion pink poncho on...)
Adults were nervy and unsure, but children, including Calum, were fearless..
...and his Mum (and my foot) also got in on the act...
...and here's how far it was down...
We had about an hour up there altogether and visited all three floors. The top floor is called the Crow's Nest. The other two floors are called Floor 1 and Floor 2, which being as they had five years' delay seem remarkably dull names. (You can get all the stats about how many double decker buses would fit up there and how far the foundations go down to hold it still at the tower's website.)
We even managed to get a shot for the Mirror Project website...
...to go with my other two.
We came down and tried to take some spectacular photos of the tower. Here's my effort...
...and here's Gill trying to get hers, with Calum looking on...
...and I even tried the night mode on the camera with limited degrees of success...
Hope Andy and Beck will see these back in New Zealand. I apologise in advance for the commentary Gill made me do on the video. (She could've picked up tips from the BBC, who were up there too...)
Thanks Gill and Calum for an excellent evening - I'm looking forward to seeing you again at Christmas 2006! x
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Thanks for that Ian. I have just got off the phone with Gill and she said you had probably posted numerous picture with hilarious annotation and you have.
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures. A good time was had by all apparently. thanks for taking care of them.