The Price of Football

The Wednesday Revolution

   
For those of you not familiar with Sheffield Wednesday, the club is going through a quiet revolution. We have been bought out by a Thai business man Dejphon Chansiri for £37.5m, His family control Thai Union Frozen Products, the worlds largest producer of tinned tuna. Its fair to say that I have never bought so much tuna, the cupboards are overflowing and we are now stacking it in the garage. Alison despairs at me, but the cats of Baston have never been so well fed!

It Finished Where it all Started

Ellie & Meg on the boat with me

I've been back at work for 4 months now and it's always been on my mind that I have not kept my cult following (well follower) up to date with the closing stages of my Long Leave. So here goes.

I guess reality started to dawn that my long leave wouldn't go on for ever about four weeks before I was due to go back to work. I'd had a taste of freedom and now in a cruel twist of fate,  I had to return to the shackles of 9-5, train journeys and corporate speak - just on the subject of corporate speak, my favourite expressions since I have returned to work have been:-

The After Build

Now the builders have gone I have been busy doing the finshing and trying to get the house back to some sort of normality. There's a lot to do. (More than I realised!)

While the weather has been good I've closed the old drive entrance and replanted some laurels to give us some added privacy. You'd think that replanting 5 laurel bushes is quite straight forward. All the gardening info says dig a hole about twice the size of the root ball - pretty straight forward what could go wrong. I started digging at lunch time, chatting to neighbours and regular visitors to the pub, by evening I was still at it as the regulars re appeared for the evening session. I'm sure it caused a great conversation piece over a pint or two as I took to using a 5ft breaker bar and sledge hammer with sweat dripping off me to break through the compacted ground to get to the soil and plant the bushes.

The Build

Its been a while since my last blog, but that's not a sign of inactivity, I just haven't got round to sitting down and blogging. During September, 3 builders moved in (well that's what it felt like) and we have been able to make the changes to our house that we have been planning for some months now.

It certainly feels like a transformation as we have changed the direction of car access to the garage and created a lovely kitchen diner with large French doors. The French doors will overlook a new garden space created through relocating the drive. I have put some before and after photos at the end of the blog.

At one point we had contractors working on the drive, electricians, builders, plumber and the guy fitting garage door. Never mind the project managing, the tea and coffee order required a spreadsheet and meticulous planning. 

Orlando to Fort Lauderdale

Well unbelievably 3 weeks have passed and we have come to the end of our family holiday in Florida. In the second half of our week in Orlando we visited Universal Islands of Adventure and then Aquatica water park. I was forced to overcome any fears of roller coaster rides by being 'encouraged' onto Dragon Challenge (not once but twice) although some incoming electrical storms meant that 'unfortunately' the Hulk roller coaster had to be closed.

The water park was good, the highlight was a 80ft drop slide, where you stand vertical in a capsule and the floor drops away from you, talk about an adrenalin rush, its bizarre that I'm not bothered about that but roller coasters make me nervous.

Orlando

Our Villa in Orlando is lovely, all the comforts of home plus we have our own pool. Its nice to be able to step out into the patio and take a dip. I've developed a technique of being able to float on the lilo with beer in hand without spilling a drop - although not when Meg is about!

On Sunday we went to Universal Studios. We had a great time, we met up with Gru and the minions, Shrek and donkey, The Simpsons and E.T. you forget how tiring it is walking round.

We went on as many rides as possible but gave the Harry Potter Escape from Gringots ride a miss with a 3.5 hour wait time.

We settled down to watch the parade at 7pm and went to get a drink, as I came to pay I realised my wallet with all the cash and credit cards was missing.

Key West & Miami, South Beach

While we were at our apartment in Key Largo, a lot of the Americans were doing day trips to Key West and saying how busy it was. One of our favourite American expressions so far, (apart from the usual 'awesome' which everything is, even when it really isn't, and everything is a 'good job' even if its an unmitigated disaster) was from a guy who had just come back from a day in Key West and clearly finding it a little too much said (in a good American drawl " this ole dawg, just wana  sit on the porch"

So we did wonder what we were driving into as we headed to the southern most point of the continental USA. The drive down was quite special going over the bridges that connect the keys, and thin strips of land with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic on the other. We arrived at our hotel in the old town of Key West, an old Victorian wooden house, veranda and all - so this old dog had a porch to sit on! The hotel was beautiful, and the majority of the buildings in the old town were of this type, some really lovely colourful houses.