I didn’t have too many spare moments when I was back in England but wanting to make the most of our trip to Leicester  to collect the wedding suits I asked my dad to take me to a few places. First up was the theatre of nightmares more commonly known as the Leicester City FC stadium on Filbert Way for some photos and a visit to the club shop to pick up a very romantic(?) gift for my girlfriend!

 

Eco House was next which is an environmental show home and somewhere I have wanted to visit since a student chose it in one of my lessons as the place he’d most like to visit in Leicestershire. Sadly I couldn’t tell him too much about it and I still won’t be able to add much more as it was closed on our arrival. Castles are a part of English life which are often of interest to students with a keen interest in Britain so with that in mind we dropped in to Kirby Muxloe to see the castle there. This was also closed but walking around the moat was sufficient enough.

 

I guess the most interesting part of the trip was seeing my 13 month old nephew Eifion who I hadn’t seen since the very early days of his life in Melbourne last August. So interesting to watch him and see how fascinated he was with things. He may have a host of proper toys but give him a spoon, a roll-on deodorant, a CD and the DVD/TV cabinet doors and he was in his element having a great time. Also, he had no sense of fear when it came to getting in the water for a bath and having water poured on him whereas I hated such things until I was about 10!

            

On our return from the wedding I finally realised a childhood dream and got my hands on my lightsaber which I bought on-line in a drunken moment a few months back! It even made the same power up, idle hum, swing, clash and power down sounds like in the Star Wars films.

As a fan of the franchise I was then able to see ‘Bring Back…Star Wars’ on Channel 4 with comedian Justin Lee Collins which was a bonus as I really enjoyed his ‘Bring Back…The A-Team’ show. The aim was to reunite the main players from the original trilogy for a re-union meeting but that was never really going to happen as Messrs Ford and Hamill were so unlikely to take part which makes the latter’s appearance at July’s Star Wars Celebration Japan all the more remarkable.

The rest of the cast make occasional appearances at Star Wars conventions so getting them together wasn’t probably as difficult as one may think. Having said all that it was still good fun to watch the host going after them and interviewing them about the rifts and so on.