Pyramids Leisure Centre

My boyfriend and I took his two young children (3 & 5) to swim here on a Wednesday afternoon last March.
We arrived a bit early and the staff at the pool told that we could kill time in the adjacent café. The staff at the pool reception was notably grumpy and lacked customer service. They did not give us a great initial impression of the facility.
We ha to walk outside and around the building to reach the café. It was a bit of a hike on a freeing cold day, but a good spot for a hot chocolate as we waited for the pool to open.
I can’t remember the price, but we felt like it was reasonable. The changing rooms and lockers are enormous and clean. The bathrooms were clean, but lacking both hand soap and towels. I thought this was especially strange as they had just opened for the day.
We all loved the pool complex, especially the kids. They had several large tube slides and a wave pool. For the smaller kids, they had a splash pool with water fountains and small slides. The water was all heated to a comfortable temperature and the building itself was kept warm. it was humid, but I appreciated the fact that I was never cold when getting out of the water.
Luckily we visited on a quiet day. I imagine that this place gets very busy and very crowded.
We didn’t put much money in the parking meter and left in two hours. The kids would have loved to have stayed longer and we should have. It’s a very cool facility.

The Pyramid Centre in Portsmouth seems like a long way to go to see a band… mainly because it is!
Situated right on the south coast it’s one of those «you have to know about it» venues. That said it does attract a good array of touring acts from around the world.
On tonight’s menu was the band Black Stone Cherry «Heavy rock, southern style». I like this band, they have great riffs, amazing vocals and harmony’s. The music’s actually not that heavy and they write about peace and raining without ever whining about it (take that counting crows!).
The venue it’self is a flat, pyramid shaped room with the stage at one end and a crowded and over priced bar at the other (as standard), it lacks the character of other theatre style venues like Brixton or Shepherds bush which both have raked floors and balconies etc. This means being caught behind a tall person can kill your gig.
I didn’t get caught behind a tall person, I got caught in the slam pit! I’ve not done any proffessional moshing for many year an it would appear the rules have changed somewhat. Elbows and kicking are now acceptable, as are obese 14 year olds with their tops off!
That experience nearly tainted my whole evening, yet I’m still going with 4 stars because I got to see Duff’s (Formerly of Guns N Roses) new band… yeah they sucked, but it never hurts to be in the presence of a legend!