Beer, Bread and Le Grand Tour

Its been a while since I last updated my blog, I know you won't believe this but I have just been so busy, I've not had the time to sit down and write it!

Rail Ale

Sunshine at Barrow Hill

I went to the Rail Ale festival at Barrow Hill with Steve and Neil. This beer festival is a regular on our annual beer festival circuit and its always an experience. The weather this year was glorious, shorts and t-shirts, it was so different to last year, when it was so cold that at one point my lips had turned blue, and I had to buy a hat to enable me to keep on drinking! 

The festival is held in the last working round house at Barrow Hill and the bars are set against a backdrop of steam and diesel locomotives. The festival is getting more mainstream these days, but it is the coming together of the beer tickers and train spotters, which presents some good people watching opportunities. Now, I would never call myself a style guru or an expert on fashion, but there are always some interesting, and I suspect unintentional, fashion statements made that it almost makes me look on trend!

The Real Alhambra

Despite letting the FA know that we have received our retro '66 England shirts, it looks like Roy Hodgson has decided not to include me and Bob in his England World Cup squad. This is a bit of a blow as it was our last opportunity to get to the finals in Brazil, but it does mean that we can now make our final preparations for our alternative European World Cup Tour - or Le Grand Tour (I'm almost bilingual)

Over the last couple of days I have been booking the stadium tours at Bayern Munich, Inter & AC Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid. This has been more of a struggle than it should have been, if ever you want to waste a bit of time have a go at booking an arena tour at the Allianz Arena, it will drive you to the edge of despair! After a couple of emails and a phone call to Nikolas - yes I'm fluent in German as well (not really his English was perfect) all was sorted.

The long and winding path

The disappearing path

Most of you will have heard of the Virgin Experience Days, where you can treat yourself to such things as Afternoon Tea at the Ritz, I believe there are also things such as Boot Camps where you can go to improve your fitness. For a couple of days this week myself and Bob have been on the self imposed official Lincolnshire Gulag Experience, breaking up paths and lumping concrete posts and gravel boards around. I'm not sure it will catch on.

We had to take up a 60ft concrete path and put up a new fence, all part of the grand building work plan. Monday arrived the sun was shining and after a leisurely breakfast we fired up the breaker and off we went. there was a sense of optimism that we would knock this job off quickly. However It soon became clear that the path wasn't going to give itself up easily, we tried various techniques, but found that the old 'smash it with a sledge hammer then break it with the breaker technique' worked quite well. A cheer went up every time a hairline crack appeared that could be exploited.

Is it my eyes?

For a while now the girls have been able to beat me at computer games on the Wii. They think its because they are just skilful and that my reactions are slowing with age, I think its because I can't see the TV properly. Alison has told me to go and get my eyes tested, which would be the logical thing to do, but I decided to opt for the manly solution to this problem and buy a bigger TV. I've had to launch a subtle campaign over the last few months of dropping hints, and I think in the end I just broke Alison's spirit and she said if you see one just buy it .... yesss!

So I've been on the look out for a bargain and whilst taking Alison's dad shopping in Sainsburys in Sheffield, there it was, it just called out to me. 50" Panasonic Plasma reduced to clear. I've never been one for impulse buying, I usually like to do a bit of research, read the reviews etc, but unfortunately this TV was only available in store and not on line, so it was now or never. After a bit of deliberating I parted with my cash and out of the warehouse appears this monster box. It was only at this point that I realised that I hadn't properly thought through how I was going to get the TV back home.