Minehead | back to life

Who is Nathan Moore?

Who is Nathan Moore you may well ask. That is what some of my friends were asking on Facebook and when I returned from my Butlin’s 80’s weekend in September.

Who is Nathan Moore? My chalet mates, aka Lisa, Liz, Karen and my sis in law Sharon, were discussing when we were trying to decide our Saturday night of entertainment. We knew we wanted to see Jason Donovan and sing “Especially for you” to him. On the stage before him was this Nathan Moore. After a quick stalking session via Google we discovered he was part of the boy band Brother Beyond and we only recognised one song from their hey-day in the 80’s. We did debate giving him a miss after branding them as one hit wonders.

But we were all ready to go out in our retina burning bright colours and crimped hair, so we thought we would give him a chance.

80's chicks
We staked our claim right in front of the stage as we were preparing for the wait for Jason and wanted pole position. We didn’t even stop off at the bar and went in shifts to protect our spot, we were so committed.
I am happy to report that in fact Nathan Moore is a fabulous entertainer, he did sing that one song we knew, ( “The harder I try”, in case you were wondering), but he also performed many other tunes so well and dare I say it……he was better than Jason! He also did photos at the end which of course Sharon and I had to do.

I know a lot people give Butlin’s a wide berth believing it to be a manky and dirty place swimming in Norovirus. But this is the second 80’s weekend I’ve been to in Minehead and I found it to be very clean. These events are very well organised, entertaining and good value for money. I highly recommend giving them a go.

For King and Country

It was time again for my bestie, Jane, and I to do our usual May pilgrimage to the beach chalet in lovely Dunster.

As we have both had a lot going in our lives that has prevented us getting together as much as we would like; we had a lot of chatting, coffee drinking, cake eating and laughing until we cried to catch up on.

But we also felt we needed to do something we hadn’t already done on our previous visits. Our first outing was to find the infamous Hobby Horse on Minehead seafront.

The May day celebration wouldn’t be complete in Minehead without the procession of the Hobby Horse, or the Sailors’ Horse. This has been a tradition for centuries and it’s origins were thought to come from a bid to frighten away the Danes. These days the horse parades through the town accompanied by drums, accordions and a load of locals/visitors/holiday makers.

The horse is actually a hessian cover over a wire frame with a nightmare inducing freaky mask, ( I don’t do masks!). At one point Jane and I were chased by the creature along the seafront, I still don’t really know why we ran in the first place! Despite this trauma we had a good time marching along in step with the drums until a thirst built up and we needed a pint in the actual Hobby Horse pub.

hobby horse horse and us

For Day two I planned an afternoon revisiting the English Civil War at Dunster Castle, definitely something we had never done before.

The castle played an important role in the English Civil War, which I touched on in a previous post. So it was an obvious place for the Taunton Garrison to stage a historical re-enactment.

This group brings the 16th and 17th century to life with music, drama and demonstrations. We were entertained, and deafened, by gun and canon fire and wandered around the tents showing activities from the era. But the highlight of the afternoon was when we were welcomed into the army as new recruits. When all the surrounding children were equipped with their pikes, minus the dangerous sharp pointy ends, we were allowed to join the line. The leader of the garrison explained that we would be learning how to handle our pikes, charge and march. I was worried about the marching as Jane has no sense of direction and doesn’t always know her left from her right. But I was wrong to fret, she took to it like a pro and looked like she was born to march.

After all that activity a cream tea was definitely called for and the little café in the castle grounds have the best scones.