Visit Lancashire

Michelin Star Cookery School Experience!

I was extremely lucky to be given the chance to experience first-hand the new Cookery
School at Northcote, the Michelin starred restaurant with rooms located in the heart of the Ribble Valley.

The Cookery School is nestled in the midst of the renowned Northcote kitchens. As the automatic glass doors slide open it’s a bit like stepping into another world, as you enter the calm of this beautifully designed and compact space and the hustle and bustle of the ‘real’ kitchen continues outside.  The school is intimate and cleverly set out and we were encouraged to explore all of the cupboards and drawers - home to every imaginable kitchen gadget I could ever need and more!  The oven doors were a particular favourite of mine you simply press a button and the door slides up and back!

From Lancashire to the World!

The Life and Times of Mitchell & Kenyon from Lancashire to the World, a brand new ‘play with songs’ opened last week at the Dukes in Lancaster – something I’d been looking forward to since last year when I’d first seen the evocative promotional trailer.

The Lancashire film making duo were long forgotten until a chance discovery in Blackburn in 1994 when literally reams and reams (and reams!) of now fragile film footage was found, restored, digitised and shown to the world by the British Film Institute. There were few who weren’t moved by the streams of mill workers caught on film leaving factories, or the ‘topical’ films showing northern seaside towns, football matches and village fetes. I found the films fascinating and compelling to watch. 

The World’s Largest Indoor Illuminations Experience

I was really happy to be invited to one of the very first viewings of Blackpool’s newest attraction for Illuminasia, before it opened to the general public on Good Friday 2014. As we know, Blackpool is famous the world over for its autumn display of lights along six miles of Promenade, but this is something very different indeed. Located within the historical Winter Gardens complex in the town centre, the Olympia room has been dedicated to an indoor light experience designed to thrill audiences of all ages and, as I found, it is a truly impressive addition to Blackpool’s grand line up of attractions.

Illuminasia is the resort’s first new indoor family attraction in over 20 years and cost £3m to develop, covering 4,000 sq mtrs and comprising 6 interactive worlds.  It was created by over fifty Chinese artisans and consists of hundreds of silk models attached to metal frames lit from inside by 35,000 LED lights.