A wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-man at Birch Garden Centre in Cheadle, Stockport

Spotting a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-man in Stockport.

We were pleasantly surprised to see this wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-man advertising at Birch Garden Centre while driving through Cheadle on Sunday morning!

We've seen quite a few wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-men on our travels over the years and they're always fun to spot and see what they're advertising.

Related blog posts:

• Airdancer
• Wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-men

More inflatable advertising in Stockport

Spotting a piece of inflatable advertising in Cheadle Village, Stockport.

Döner chef inflatable at Cappadocia Ocakbasi Turkish Restaurant in Cheadle Village, Stockport

I spotted this piece of inflatable advertising at Cappadocia Ocakbasi Turkish Restaurant while in Cheadle Village.

Döner chef inflatable at Cappadocia Ocakbasi Turkish Restaurant in Cheadle Village, Stockport

It's fun spotting airdancers (aka a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man) and other types of inflatable advertising such as this kebab chef at Cappadocia Turkish restaurant in Cheadle Village.

Merry Skipmas!

You know it's really getting festive in Stockport as soon as you see the Cheadle Skip Hire Christmas Skip Tree go up in Adswood!

Dodgeballing again!

Back in action with the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club.

It was brilliant to be back in action with the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club last night.

Richard Gottfried - Dodgeballer

The session in Parrs Wood, Manchester was the first one for the club's adult members since March 2020.

The games were my first since the 10th March 2020 - that's 777 days!

I played 4, won 2, lost 2 in games. A fun mix of Prison Rules, Super Catch and Secret Spy.

I was also the third last player in the Last Person Standing game at the end of the night.

Check out the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club website for more info on the Tuesday night sessions.

See the British Dodgeball website for more info on the serious side of the game.

My 'all-time' Dodgeball Win-Loss Record (2005-2022) now stands at 991 games played, 453 wins, 494 losses and 44 tied games.

I've been playing the game since the eighties so this is my fifth decade!

The best Christmas tree I've seen so far this year

We spotted this marvellous Christmas tree made out of skips as we passed by Cheadle Skip Hire on Friday evening!

A Christmas tree at Cheadle Skip Hire

The Inbetweeners in Cheadle

Spotted in Cheadle.

Cheadle Car Sales has got an Inbetweeners car parked up in Cheadle.

We spotted the Cheadle Car Sales Only Fools & Horses van last month.

My last pre-pandemic games of dodgeball

I played my last pre-coronavirus pandemic lockdown games of dodgeball a year ago today.

In my last Tuesday night session with the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club I played 5, won 4 and lost 1.

I'm really looking forward to returning to dodgeball action when it's once again safe to do so.

My 2020 record stood at 18 games played with 9 wins and 9 losses.

My all-time Dodgeball Win-Loss Record (2005-2020) stands at 987 games played, 451 wins, 492 losses and 44 tied games.

Only Cars and Commercials

We spotted this amazing van on our daily walk in Cheadle on Saturday!

I'd literally just said to Emily that I hadn't seen anything fun to photograph recently as we've been locked down in the borough.

Only Fools and Horses is a pop culture icon that has been ripe for bootlegging and parodies over the years.

It's crazy how many Reliant Regal Supervans we've seen on our minigolf travels.

Elsewhere in Stockport you can see a hearse from a business called Shed's Household Independent Traders.

Shawfield Line Marking Specialists Ltd. is another business that operates in Stockport and some less exotic locations like London, Paris and New York.

If you're in Blackpool you can visit Lester's Independent Trading Co.

Bruntwood Park Pitch & Putt in Cheadle

Our first miniature golf course visit of the year.

We had a walk round Bruntwood Park in Cheadle on New Year's Day and while there took a look at the Pitch & Putt course.

Rules for the time of Covid

A view to the 7th tee

A frosty bunker

An icy green

The layout was the second miniature golf course we visited, and 695th overall on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour, when we moved to Cheadle Hulme back in 2016.

Visit the Bruntwood Park Pitch & Putt website for more information.

Social distancing minigolf

The Bruntwood Park Pitch & Putt course was the first place saw social distancing measures in place in person. That was in May last year.

A look back at 2020

The last course we swung by in 2020 was the grass Putting course at Park Square in Cheadle Heath on the 29th December.

Before the first national lockdown hit and our out-of-home putting was paused we'd visited 948 courses since September 2006.

We had a very strong start to the year and visited 20 courses in the first 20 days of 2020.

We were still able to visit a total of 46 courses in 2020, including revisits. 15 of them were new layouts to us. We've been able to visit eight courses during the pandemic (March to December 2020), playing two of them.

We've now been to a total of 956 courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Leisure Orienteering at Bruntwood Park in Cheadle

While having a walk round Bruntwood Park in Cheadle on New Year's Day we spotted this nice old sign for Leisure Orienteering at the park.

The sign is at the Pitch & Putt kiosk in the park

It's one of the few remaining signs in the borough that carries the old council logo. We've seen others near the Stockport Pyramid, at Woodford Recreation Ground and on Adswood Road.

The logo for Stockport Leisure Services

Park Square Putting Green in Cheadle Heath

A look at the snowy Park Square Putting Green in Cheadle Heath.

Unplayable

The Putting Green at the Park Square offices in Cheadle Heath was the first miniature golf course we visited this year.

Merry Christmas from Stockport

Merry Christmas to everyone from us here in sunny Stockport.

We're not sending any real cards this year as last year we posted out a hundred special Christmas minigolf postcards and only 5 arrived at their destination, and 2 of them were half destroyed, as the post box we put them in suffered some sort of incident.

A-Team Cleaning Services in Manchester

Spotting an 'A-Team van' in Stockport.

I always keep an eye out for fun and interesting stuff and managed to get a snap of this 'A-Team van' out on a mission somewhere in the Greater Manchester underground earlier today!

Check out the A-Team Cleaning Services Facebook Page for more information.

It's not the first A-Team van I've seen on my travels. Check out the Multi Kitchens Ltd van, The Waste Team and The Natural Tile Company in Belfast.

Social distancing at Cheadle Makers Market

We went to our first outdoor market during the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday morning.

It was an interesting experience indeed.

There was a lot of social distancing signage and a good range of stalls.

There were lots of people out and about too too. Unfortunately not everyone understands what arrows and warning signs mean.

We didn't stay there for too long, but did buy some nice gin and mixers from DS Artisan Food & Drink before we scarpered.

I've been posting snaps of the wide-range of social distancing posters and signs I see on my daily outdoor exercise during the time of coronavirus. You can see them here on the blog and on my Instagram. I've seen some interesting, colourful and clear ones. And some really terrible ones too.

Social Distancing Miniature Golf

Seeing social distancing miniature golf in Cheadle.

We saw social distancing measures in place at a miniature golf course in person for the first time today.

The additional rules of Pitch & Putt during the current 'new normal'

It was at Bruntwood Pitch & Putt in Bruntwood Park, Cheadle, Stockport.

Spacing lines for queuing at the course

We were out on a bike ride for our daily exercise and cycled through the park.

The green of hole 1

The lady at the course said they'd had a good morning with players enjoying a game on the 18-hole layout.

A view of one of the holes at Bruntwood Park's Pitch & Putt course

We saw a couple of pairs out on the course just after a downpour.

You can just make out two golfers playing the course in the distance

There was clear signage and spacing marked out for queuing to the kiosk. There were also spaces marked out on the approach to the first tee.

Social distancing signage at the entrance

Spacing marked out on the approach to the first tee

Playing at Bruntwood Pitch & Putt

Bruntwood Park's Pitch & Putt was the 695th course we visited and 414th played on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. We played there on Miniature Golf Day 2016.

Playing hole 1

Visit the Bruntwood Pitch & Putt website for more information.

I always keep my minigolf scorecards, but someone had discarded theirs elsewhere in the park. Sad to see

Related blog posts:

• Cheadle
• Stockport
• Coronavirus
• Social Distancing
• Bruntwood Pitch & Putt
• Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
• The next normal rules of minigolf
• Competitive socialising in isolation
• The Coronavirus (Ham & Egger) Files

Check out the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour Newsletter archive and sign-up to receive future editions

Stay alert. Control the virus

I was alert on my government mandated outdoor exercise time today.

The Battle of Stockport Borough

There can be only one winner!

As there is a lack of sport going on anywhere at the moment The Stockport Show has organised The Battle of the Borough to find out which bit of Stockport is the best!

The Battle of #Stockport Borough UPDATE

After we launched this last night we have been amazed by your response so far Stockport 💙

Listening to your feedback, we've made some small tweaks to teams as Davenport becomes Davenport & Cale Green and Cheadle becomes "The Cheadles" pic.twitter.com/0A9TgtemlD

— The Stockport Show (@StockportShow) April 1, 2020

There are a number a mouthwatering clashes and the event has certainly got me and fellow Stopfordians excited.

Each day two areas of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport will go face-to-face in a live poll on Twitter and Facebook every day to decide the ultimate champions.

My area - Cheadle Hulme - is competing as The Cheadles alongside Cheadle Royal, Cheadle Village and Cheadle Heath. Our first round tie is with Reddish.

I've got a bit of a soft spot for reddish as it's home to Reddish South railway station. One of the UK's least used stations and one of the stops on the infamous once-a-week Parliamentary ghost train!

I'm really looking forward to following the action as it unfolds.

Which bit will be declared the best bit of the borough

The Stockport Show is a live stream for Stockport Borough promoting local businesses and helping isolated and lonely people to connect.

Check out The Stockport Show on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Dodgeball with the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club in Stockport

In my last Tuesday night session with the Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club I played 5, won 4 and lost 1 in games.

We also played a lot of fast-paced METEOR BALL games. That was superb FUN as you're constantly moving, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving and dodging. If you're hit or get caught out you run to the back wall and then re-enter the game.

I'm looking forward to returning to dodgeball action once the coronavirus pandemic is over.

What retro wrestling t-shirt shall I wear for my next dodgeball outing?

My 2020 record stands at 18 games played, 9 wins, 9 losses.

------------------

My all-time Dodgeball Win-Loss Record stands at:

• 2005-2020: Played 987, Won 451, Lost 492, Tied 44.

By year:

• 2005-2013: Played 959, Won 437, Lost 478, Tied 44.
• 2014-2018: Inactive.
• 2019: Played 10, Won 5, Lost 5, Tied 0.
• 2020: Played 18, Won 9, Lost 9, Tied 0.

Related blog posts:

• Dodgeball
• Dodgeball - getting back in the game

Links:

• Cheadle & Gatley Griffins Dodgeball Club
• British Dodgeball

Putting Green at the Park Square offices in Cheadle Heath

The first unplayable course visit of the year.

On New Year's Day we walked past the Miniature Golf course at the Park Square offices in Cheadle Heath, Stockport.

It's our nearest course. We've never been allowed to play it as it's for tenants of the offices only.

The Kitchen A-Team

If you need a new kitchen, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire - THE QUOTATION TEAM!

We spotted this 'A-Team' van in Cheadle Heath yesterday

Aka Multi Kitchens Ltd.

The Waste Team in Leeds and The Natural Tile Company in Belfast have cool A-Team vans too.