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What a weekend! Thursday and Friday last week I was getting very nervous about the match, but on Saturday I was pretty calm. Carmen, Anja and the kids dropped me off at the airport, and I had a smooth journey to Cardiff via Stansted and Heathrow (by National Express coach). Arrived in Cardiff at 21.45, and the town was already busy, mainly with Wednesday fans. I hadn't arranged to meet anyone on Saturday night so I went off for a (delicious) Thai meal on my own then off to the hotel (400m walk). The room was very basic and small, it looked as if the hotel was designed specifically to capitalize on (ok, profiteer from) all the sporting events played at the Millennium Stadium. To cap it all there was no hot water in the shower, and I couldn't be arsed to complain about it on the big day. For various reasons I couldn't sleep anyway - too many Red Bulls I guess, combined with Wednesdayites singing in the corridor at regular intervals through the night. Luckily the room did have satellite TV (Sky News, Sky Sport news, Paramount comedy channel, plus a couple more) so at least I had something to watch while I was awake.
I was up early on Sunday, ate a reasonable breakfast at the hotel and went out for a wander. Bought a Sunday paper, had a cup of tea in a café and watched more and more Wednesdayites arrive. The first person to arrive who I'd arranged to meet was Richard Pashley at about 10.30, followed shortly thereafter by Dave Moran, a fellow translator who'd flown over from Sweden. Cardiff is an excellent location for these matches, the stadium is perfect and perfectly located right in the middle of town, minutes away from all the bars, restaurants and hotels. Shame it's going back to Wembley next year, with all of London's horrible access problems. Various groups had arranged to meet at various pubs, and we settled at one of these, the Wellington, where the London Owls had arranged to meet. It was good to see a bunch of familiar faces from previous trips to Sheffield and abroad, and put some faces to familiar names off the email list.
At about 2 o'clock we started heading off for the ground. It looked from the tickets as if Dave Moran and I were sitting virtually next to one another, and this turned out to be the case, as an amazing coincidence among 40,000 other Wednesday fans. I was one row behind and two seats along, touching distance in other words.
Well I'm not much of a one for match reports, so I'll leave that to the experts. Suffice to say it was a total nailbiter of a match, full of drama, and the relief and elation that swept through the Wednesday part of the ground when they pulled ahead in extra time and then went 4-2 up with only a minute to play was amazing.
Afterwards Dave, Sean and I headed back to the Wellington, where we met up again with Martin and Richard Gladman and a few other London Owls. Dave, Sean and I moved on to a couple of other bars later on, until at one point, after pub closing, they went into a club and I got turned away by the bouncer for wearing a 'sport top' (a really non-sporty McGregor rugby shirt) and trainers (which looked much less trainer-y than what 70% of the other men/lads he'd let in were wearing). But I wasn't really bothered, wasn't much in a clubby frame of mind anyway, so I waved goodbye to Dave through the window and headed off to the coach station.
There was a coach to Heathrow ready to leave, but I couldn't get on it, unfortunately, because there were apparently loads of people getting on in Bristol, so I wandered off again to get some food then settled down at the coach station for the 2-hour wait. I was knackered after my lack of sleep the previous night (and a long and exciting day) and nodded off. Luckily I was woken up when the coach arrived - by a Hartlepool fan!
I was wearing my Wednesday scarf against the cold, and on the coach I put one end over my eyes to keep out the light, and feel straight to sleep, only waking up as we approached Heathrow. I had a 75 minute wait there for the Stansted coach, but once I was on board that one I fell back to sleep again immediately. I had a long wait at Stansted before I could check in, so I had a cooked breakfast in O'Neills, read the reports in various papers on the match - and bought some birthday presents for Daniel.
Dave's flight was leaving at the same time as mine, from the same airport - another bizarre coincidence - and we bumped into each other again as we were heading for the gate. He and Sean had slept in Sean's car and then driven to Stansted at what sounded like the speed of sound. They'd offered me a lift, but there was never going to be room for 3 of us to sleep in the car anyway, so it all worked out fine in the end.
Boarded the plane on time and promptly fell asleep again ;o)
It was a bit surreal coming back to Cantabria after such a weekend. It's now 9 pm (8 UK time) and I'm fading fast, expect I'll be tucked up in bed within the hour.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Barmy Army on the road
Sheffield Wednesday are through to the playoff final on Sunday 29th May in Cardiff and I will be there. Whistle stop trip by Ryanair to Stansted, then by National Express coach to Cardiff, returning on Monday morning. Finally a big match - the last time I went to one was the semi-final of the FA Cup in 1983... Of course they lost that one, and all the teams I was following at Euro 2000 lost all the matches I went to watch, so this is the kiss of death on Wednesday's chances, but just in case they do break the Turner jinx, I want to be there to witness it.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Misc
Diet update: Going very well so far - 97.5 kg this morning, 6 kg down in 2.5 weeks. Whenever Carmen cooks something for the family that I can't eat, I have my cooked breakfast at lunchtime instead, and switch to just a grapefruit and a yoghurt in the mornings. I go jogging for 45 minutes 3 or 4 times a week, which also helps of course. I take along my new MP3 player, filled up with downloaded BBC radio comedy.
Flat update: we just got another 2-week booking, now fully booked up to 16 September, plus 4-8 October.
Jamie lost another tooth the other day, her sixth. Perez the mouse brought her a Winx Club book and poster, and she was pleased as punch.
Flat update: we just got another 2-week booking, now fully booked up to 16 September, plus 4-8 October.
Jamie lost another tooth the other day, her sixth. Perez the mouse brought her a Winx Club book and poster, and she was pleased as punch.
Pizzas
Jamie's class has a cooking afternoon a couple of times a year, at which parents help out. Last week it was pizzas, and I was one of the parents. As you can imagine it got very messy, and the lack of serviettes, kitchen roll or even toilet paper didn't help. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the whole thing was badly organised and chaotic from start to finish. The high point being the pizza that someone (not me, honest!) put on an oven grid without any aluminium foil on it, so that we could all watch the dough melting through the grid onto the other pizza below.
It's a good job they were only 6-yr-olds, a couple of years older and they'd have laughed us out of school! As it was they were suitably impressed, ha ha.
And we won't mention the hygiene element - 20 kids mucking in (what an appropriate term!) kneading dough and cutting ham into little bits with hands that looked like they'd been digging for buried bones all lunchtime. Suffice to say they all devoured the finished product, while the parents looked on squeamishly.
At the end there was one more final farcical decision to cap a surreal afternoon - the kids each had a little dough ball to take home and bake their own pizzas. The teacher's assistant decided to wrap these in blue cellophane, usually used for arts and crafts. Guess what colour the dough was by the time it got home? Guess where the dough went the moment Jamie was out of the kitchen?
As you can see from the photos below, none of it bothered the kids, who had a great time treating the dough as plasticene, sneakily eating most of the ham before it got near the pizzas and scoffing down the sad end result!
It's a good job they were only 6-yr-olds, a couple of years older and they'd have laughed us out of school! As it was they were suitably impressed, ha ha.
And we won't mention the hygiene element - 20 kids mucking in (what an appropriate term!) kneading dough and cutting ham into little bits with hands that looked like they'd been digging for buried bones all lunchtime. Suffice to say they all devoured the finished product, while the parents looked on squeamishly.
At the end there was one more final farcical decision to cap a surreal afternoon - the kids each had a little dough ball to take home and bake their own pizzas. The teacher's assistant decided to wrap these in blue cellophane, usually used for arts and crafts. Guess what colour the dough was by the time it got home? Guess where the dough went the moment Jamie was out of the kitchen?
As you can see from the photos below, none of it bothered the kids, who had a great time treating the dough as plasticene, sneakily eating most of the ham before it got near the pizzas and scoffing down the sad end result!
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Zaragoza
I got back yesterday from a whirlwind trip to Zaragoza, for a boy's night out with Charles. He's on holiday with his family in Catalonia, so we decided to meet halfway. I left on Friday at 11, and took the toll motorway from Bilbao to Zaragoza. Very expensive, it turned out. Despite the Michelin route planner's estimate of 3 hours and 23 minutes, it took well over 4 hours to get there, at an average speed of 140 km/h. Why do route planners always vastly underestimate journey times?
We'd booked a hotel in the centre of town, and I found it without too much trouble - Charles had arrived 20 minutes earlier - and by about 5 we headed off to have a look round. Zaragoza has some amazing architecture, and I was surprised at the Moorish influences, considering how far north it is. The cathedral is breathtaking. It was also very hot compared to Cantabria! On the way back to the hotel we picked up some refreshments to keep us going - bottle of scotch and a bottle of Diet Coke.
Half a bottle later we were ready to head out again. I'd looked up some concerts on the internet before I left home, which was a good thing because there were no listings whatsoever of pop or rock gigs in the local paper. I'd not heard of any of the bands, but one of them had a website where you could download a couple of their tracks, and they sounded good, so that was the one. We asked at the hotel reception where the venue was. It took them quite a while to find it, it wasn't in the phone book and they ended up resorting to the internet (now why hadn't I thought to write down the address?)
We found the venue and then wandered off for some dinner at an all-you-can-eat tapas restaurant. Yummy. I had melon and Serrano ham (lots of it), then escargots in spicy tomato sauce, followed by various meaty bits and pieces. Bottle of Rioja between us. Then it was back to the venue, which turned out to be no bigger than our living room, with a tiny low stage area. We'd missed the support act but - good timing - the main act was just about to start. They were four young lads with an incredible sound, a cross between Ash and Reef, with some Rush touches thrown in. Suffice to say we had a great time, along with the 18 other members of the audience (average age without us: 19).
After the gig we went over to chat to the band, as you do. Turns out they come from Torrelavega and their roadie comes from San Vicente. In fact his mum cleans the house of some Dutch friends of ours. Small world or what? We bought their two cds and got all the band members to sign them both. Did I mention we were a wee bit tipsy at this point?
By the time the band had packed up their gear and gone we decided to call it a day, rambled back to the hotel and crashed, like fully clothed and lights & telly on. Ahem.
Next morning we were both right as rain, although both a bit morning-after disconnected. Took full advantage of the lovely brekky buffet, then headed off for a final wander round the city before heading back to the cars to start the long drive home. I tried the non-toll road this time, but it was a horrible single carriageway thing with no passing spaces, so it was back on the toll motorway at the earliest opportunity.
At about 2 I pulled into a village in Rioja to grab a bite to eat, and had a surreal experience. In our part of the world, and I assumed that the rest of Spain was the same, you've got chic restaurants for going out to and cheap ones where you can get a good but simple meal. This village had about 7 chic restaurants, but none of the bars served food apart from some very dodgy looking tapas. I walked around it 3 times searching, and it was a lovely place, but had nowhere reasonable to eat. (One thing I did spot on a wall was a fly poster proclaiming 'Free motorway now!', which sentiment I could definitely appreciate). By the time I'd finished walking around, though, it was 3 pm and I'd pretty much got over my hunger, plus I'd run out of time, so I decided to fill up with fuel and pick up a snack at the petrol station to eat on the way.
Found the garage, but it only had high-carb junk food. Now I know I'd been quaffing Atkins-unfriendly whisky and beer the night before (not to mention the tacos at tea-time), but this was now and I decided to resist the urge to sugar binge, so I just got back in and kept driving. I stopped off at the El Corte Ingles department store just off the motorway in Santander to buy Carmen's birthday present, and managed to pick up one of those cheese snack sticks, which kept me going.
When I was nearly home Carmen phoned to say she and the kids were out at a hotel on the cliffs with a bunch of friends and kids, and could I pick them up. I went out to join them but was not exactly the life and soul, all I wanted was to go home.
When I finally got there though I still wasn't too bothered about food, and was too knackered to make myself anything, so snacked on yoghurt and hazelnuts.
Then this morning I went out for a long bike ride with Carlos and Rodolfo - managed to persuade Carlos to tackle one of the big hills - and again on an empty stomach, so I guess it wasn't really a surprise when my weigh-in when I got in showed I'd dropped 2.5 kg in 48 hours - 98.6 kg.
Today was another busy day, after the bike ride we went over to the Dutch friends who the roadie's mum cleans for, for paella in the garden. The forecast had been for sun, but this coast is apparently impossible to forecast, and it was cloudy and windy all day. We took about three different jumpers and coats for each of us, to cope with every eventuality. The kids had a great time playing with some other Dutch kids for a change, and we had a very pleasant meal .Not very Atkins again, but I was feeling cocky after the 2.5 kg.
At about 5.30 we went over to some other friends who had had a barbecue, although they'd had much less shelter from the wind than we had and had got a bit frozen. The kids played with their friends, but everyone was getting tired and tetchy by now, so it was a relief to get them home and quickly to bed.
We'd booked a hotel in the centre of town, and I found it without too much trouble - Charles had arrived 20 minutes earlier - and by about 5 we headed off to have a look round. Zaragoza has some amazing architecture, and I was surprised at the Moorish influences, considering how far north it is. The cathedral is breathtaking. It was also very hot compared to Cantabria! On the way back to the hotel we picked up some refreshments to keep us going - bottle of scotch and a bottle of Diet Coke.
Half a bottle later we were ready to head out again. I'd looked up some concerts on the internet before I left home, which was a good thing because there were no listings whatsoever of pop or rock gigs in the local paper. I'd not heard of any of the bands, but one of them had a website where you could download a couple of their tracks, and they sounded good, so that was the one. We asked at the hotel reception where the venue was. It took them quite a while to find it, it wasn't in the phone book and they ended up resorting to the internet (now why hadn't I thought to write down the address?)
We found the venue and then wandered off for some dinner at an all-you-can-eat tapas restaurant. Yummy. I had melon and Serrano ham (lots of it), then escargots in spicy tomato sauce, followed by various meaty bits and pieces. Bottle of Rioja between us. Then it was back to the venue, which turned out to be no bigger than our living room, with a tiny low stage area. We'd missed the support act but - good timing - the main act was just about to start. They were four young lads with an incredible sound, a cross between Ash and Reef, with some Rush touches thrown in. Suffice to say we had a great time, along with the 18 other members of the audience (average age without us: 19).
After the gig we went over to chat to the band, as you do. Turns out they come from Torrelavega and their roadie comes from San Vicente. In fact his mum cleans the house of some Dutch friends of ours. Small world or what? We bought their two cds and got all the band members to sign them both. Did I mention we were a wee bit tipsy at this point?
By the time the band had packed up their gear and gone we decided to call it a day, rambled back to the hotel and crashed, like fully clothed and lights & telly on. Ahem.
Next morning we were both right as rain, although both a bit morning-after disconnected. Took full advantage of the lovely brekky buffet, then headed off for a final wander round the city before heading back to the cars to start the long drive home. I tried the non-toll road this time, but it was a horrible single carriageway thing with no passing spaces, so it was back on the toll motorway at the earliest opportunity.
At about 2 I pulled into a village in Rioja to grab a bite to eat, and had a surreal experience. In our part of the world, and I assumed that the rest of Spain was the same, you've got chic restaurants for going out to and cheap ones where you can get a good but simple meal. This village had about 7 chic restaurants, but none of the bars served food apart from some very dodgy looking tapas. I walked around it 3 times searching, and it was a lovely place, but had nowhere reasonable to eat. (One thing I did spot on a wall was a fly poster proclaiming 'Free motorway now!', which sentiment I could definitely appreciate). By the time I'd finished walking around, though, it was 3 pm and I'd pretty much got over my hunger, plus I'd run out of time, so I decided to fill up with fuel and pick up a snack at the petrol station to eat on the way.
Found the garage, but it only had high-carb junk food. Now I know I'd been quaffing Atkins-unfriendly whisky and beer the night before (not to mention the tacos at tea-time), but this was now and I decided to resist the urge to sugar binge, so I just got back in and kept driving. I stopped off at the El Corte Ingles department store just off the motorway in Santander to buy Carmen's birthday present, and managed to pick up one of those cheese snack sticks, which kept me going.
When I was nearly home Carmen phoned to say she and the kids were out at a hotel on the cliffs with a bunch of friends and kids, and could I pick them up. I went out to join them but was not exactly the life and soul, all I wanted was to go home.
When I finally got there though I still wasn't too bothered about food, and was too knackered to make myself anything, so snacked on yoghurt and hazelnuts.
Then this morning I went out for a long bike ride with Carlos and Rodolfo - managed to persuade Carlos to tackle one of the big hills - and again on an empty stomach, so I guess it wasn't really a surprise when my weigh-in when I got in showed I'd dropped 2.5 kg in 48 hours - 98.6 kg.
Today was another busy day, after the bike ride we went over to the Dutch friends who the roadie's mum cleans for, for paella in the garden. The forecast had been for sun, but this coast is apparently impossible to forecast, and it was cloudy and windy all day. We took about three different jumpers and coats for each of us, to cope with every eventuality. The kids had a great time playing with some other Dutch kids for a change, and we had a very pleasant meal .Not very Atkins again, but I was feeling cocky after the 2.5 kg.
At about 5.30 we went over to some other friends who had had a barbecue, although they'd had much less shelter from the wind than we had and had got a bit frozen. The kids played with their friends, but everyone was getting tired and tetchy by now, so it was a relief to get them home and quickly to bed.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
The first few days of the diet, combined with daily jogging or cycling, have shown impressive results. Frighteningly so, in fact:
Thurs 28/4: 103.5 kg
Fri 29/4: 102.8 kg
Sat 30/4: 101.7
Sun 1/5: 101.3
This is probably all water though. Jane's not been very well this week so our race has been postponed until she's better. Maybe start after her weigh-in on Monday, if she's well enough.
It's Mother's Day today and we are going for a walk on the beach with Anja in a minute, followed by steaks at home.
It's a bank holiday weekend here as well, so the village is pretty full.
Thurs 28/4: 103.5 kg
Fri 29/4: 102.8 kg
Sat 30/4: 101.7
Sun 1/5: 101.3
This is probably all water though. Jane's not been very well this week so our race has been postponed until she's better. Maybe start after her weigh-in on Monday, if she's well enough.
It's Mother's Day today and we are going for a walk on the beach with Anja in a minute, followed by steaks at home.
It's a bank holiday weekend here as well, so the village is pretty full.
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