Ice bucket

Premier

If today's games are anything to go by, we are in for a fun Premier League this season - Chelsea and Everton come up with nine goals between them (with Chelsea scoring twice as many as Everton), Palace get their season started with a 3-3 draw with Newcastle; Burnley hold Man U to a goalless draw, meaning that Man U are still looking for their first win and have only two points after three games; and Stoke travel to the blue side of Manchester and take all of the points home with them.

Let's see whether Spurs and Liverpool can keep it interesting tomorrow.

London trips

A few observations from the last couple of days of heading in to London for training:

• A good week to be travelling in to London - I suspect that lots of people have taken the last week of August off, enjoying the tail end of the school holidays, plus the bonus of the Bank Holiday Monday. Places were still busy, but far more manageable than usual.
• The Metropolitan Line definitely has the best carriages on the Underground. It'd be great if all of the lines could have stock as good as that.
• If the hoardings are to be believed, Farringdon will be pretty nice when it is finally finished (and hopefully that's not too far away based on Bec's watching of documentaries in the middle of the night).
• London continues to be a fantastic place for people watching as you walk from station to work. Some embrace dress down Friday, but some definitely don't - a few particularly dapper Dans were strutting their stuff this morning, one with three piece suit, gold chain and matching tie pin.
• Beards continue to definitely be 'in', and many were taking the opportunity in the morning sunshine to show of their designer shades, although I remain to be convinced by the suit and sunglasses look.
• I need a belt for my suit trousers.
• On course catering hadn't improved from yesterday to today, and there remained a distinct lack of biscuits. However, one of my colleagues had done a splendid thing and anticipated this, and brought a pack of chocolate cookies from home.
• One of the main benefits of work days in London is being able to read on the train (even if on balance I still prefer my normal commute by car), and I was pleased to see Sandi Toksvig reference my favourite A A Milne quote in her book. In case you're wondering what it is, you can find it in a previous post of mine here.

Station stores

Walking through St Pancras over the last couple of days I have been surprised to notice a couple of book store changes.


First of all, right at the end nearest to the Euston Road exit a Hatchards bookshop has appeared, which was a particular surprise, as I thought that the Hatchards name had been in retreat since the acquisition by Waterstones some years ago. However, a quick look at their website reveals that the St Pancras outlet is their only other store apart from the flagship on Piccadilly.

Mind you, it's a good job that they have arrived on the station concourse, because the other piece of news is that Foyles have disappeared. A little bit of research on that one seems to suggest that they were unable to agree on the terms of the lease renewal which was due at the end of July, and so out they went.

Foyles was a good store, and a quick browse in there would often provide some inspiration and ideas on books to read - it'll be interesting to see if Hatchards can live up to the same standard.

The St Pancras landlords haven't been slow in attracting a new tenant for the vacant space, and some time soon, John Lewis will be opening their first ever station store - will be interesting to see exactly what parts of their vast range they are planning on selling from the station?

Library update

Today I have finished the third of my first batch of books borrowed from the library. As I mentioned in this post I borrowed three for reading and three of sheet music from Crawley a little while ago.

Each of them has been interesting and deserves their own blog, which I will get around to writing soon!

Today, I also popped into Maidstone library to pick up the three books that I had on reserve, all of which had now arrived for me to collect.

Loving this library system so far!

New low

Well, if we were looking for an official moment to declare it the end of an era, I think that today can most definitely be that day.

MK Dons 4 - Man Utd 0

It doesn't get much worse than that!

Bank Holiday

Well how very traditional - an August Bank Holiday Monday and it rained all day!

London

Sunday day trip to London - parked at the O2 (for the bargain price of £6 all day on a Sunday) and hopped on the Jubilee Line). Would have got off at London Bridge, but the station was temporarily closed due to an incident of some sort. Still, it worked out in our favour as we got off at the next stop (Southwark) and had a pleasant stroll along the South Bank, and ended up stopping for lunch at Porky's BBQ, just down the side of the Globe Theatre.


After lunch we carried on along eastbound, through More London, passing under Tower Bridge, and to the Design Museum, where we enjoyed assessing the entries for this year's Design Awards. A couple of my favourites were the polystyrene and bamboo Toyota, as well as the Bradley Timepiece (designed to be a wristwatch that can be worn easily by blind people), Jake particularly liked a rather funky new keyboard, and whilst it wasn't one of the entries for the award, I think Nicky wanted to bring home a new clock.


One of our observations on the museum was that whilst it was excellent, it could really do with some more space, and it turns out that they are on the case - they will be moving to a new, purpose built home in South Kensington in 2016, so we can look forward to another visit then.

After leaving the museum, we walked across Tower Bridge, and passing the Tower we marvelled at the poppy gardens that are under construction (note to self - apparently there has been a rush on ordering the first batch of poppies but I think some more are being made - must investigate how to get one / some), and then headed to Bank to get on the Central Line.


Destination Tottenham Court Road tube (and not just so that we could all be reminded just how much of a dump Centerpoint really is - are they pulling it down - let's hope so!) so that we could pop down to Denmark Street and to a couple of music shops where Jake got a couple of new books, and then we took a stroll from there to Carnaby Street.

Now as anyone who knows London will know, the walk from Denmark Street to Carnaby Street passes through a rather interesting area of town. We had an amusing wander, but didn't go in anywhere!! I especially wanted to into one particular establishment, just so that I could say that I had had a "Snog in Soho", but sadly we moved quickly along. For the avoidance of doubt, Snog sells frozen yoghurt!!

We enjoyed a wander along Carnaby, but didn't get anything other than a big box of Ben's Cookies to bring home, and so headed for Oxford Circus (Bakerloo to Waterloo and then Jubilee to North Greenwich) and back home.

Galvin

Been for a very nice meal out this evening at Galvin la Chapelle, which is on Spital Square, just off Bishopsgate. It was the latest is our series of dinners with Chris and Carolyn (as recommended by Chris this time - quite close to his work, and I think tipped off by a colleague), and I think wins the prize of being the best so far.

Food was lovely, I think Nicky particularly enjoyed the champagne and the espresso martini, and I think Carolyn particularly enjoyed the young Italian waiter!

Complete

Only really need one one for today to summarise the most important event:

Completion.

Jack

In one of his perhaps slightly less well known films, "Jack", Robin Williams played a boy (called Jack) who suffered with a medical condition which caused him to age at four times the rate of 'normal' people.

For the majority of the film, we follow Jack when he is ten years old (played by Williams, as he has aged as if he is 40 years old), and in particular his trials and tribulations as he attends school for the first time (having been home schooled up to that point - his tutor being played by Bill Cosby). As with so many of Robin Williams' films, there are lots of laughs along the way.

Then, at the end of the film we fast forward eight years to Jack's graduation from school, and he is chosen to deliver the valedictorian speech. By this point in his life he is inhabiting the body of a 72 year-old man.

When the film came out almost twenty years ago, the speech seemed to be pretty good, and was a nice way to round out the film and draw the story to a close.

"I don't have very much time these days so I'll make it quick. Like my life. You know, as we come to the end of this phase of our life, we find ourselves trying to remember the good times and trying to forget the bad times, and we find ourselves thinking about the future. We start to worry, thinking, "What am I gonna do? Where am I gonna be in ten years?" But I say to you, "Hey, look at me!"

So far, so good. Pretty appropriate for a graduation speech, and rather touching in the film. But then, here comes the kicker. Knowing what we know now, and the immense loss of a life the ended too soon, and yet a life that touched millions - knowing that, even if he was in character, Robin spoke the following words - it simply knocks the breath clean out of you.

Please don't worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth. Life is fleeting. And if you're ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day ... make a wish and think of me. Make your life spectacular. I know I did."

And all I can think are these three things:

- Yes, Robin, you sure did!
- Don't we all owe it to each other to try to be a little bit spectacular in the best way we can.
- Wouldn't it have been lovely if he could have stuck around a little bit longer.

James Foley

What a truly awful, terrible and sad piece of news.

Libraries

Since getting back from holiday, I have joined two libraries.

Well, I suppose that's not strictly accurate. What I should really say is that I have joined two counties' worth of libraries, as by joining one you are automatically joined to all of the libraries in that county, and so I am now a member of the libraries of both Kent and West Sussex.

And jolly marvellous it is too.

I finally went into the new library in Maidstone, not far from the old Springfield site, and joined that a couple of Saturdays ago. I didn't immediately borrow anything, but put a couple of books on reserve (for the princely sum of 35p per book - payable on collection), and have since been emailed to say that one of them has come in and that I can go in and pick it up any time in the next couple of weeks.

It's all very high tech now - I can search through the entire catalogue on line across the whole county, and can request books be moved from one branch to another, can borrow from anywhere I like, as well as returning books to another branch. Impressive stuff.

Marginally complicated by Medway insisting on being a different council to Kent (although frankly libraries are the least of our problems in that regard when the bloody boundary between the two runs right through your garden !!) but I am automatically a member of Medway libraries as well as Kent - it'll just be interesting to see whether I can return books borrowed from Maidstone to our Walderslade library?

Anyway, I've reserved a third book at Maidstone in the last couple of days and am waiting for notification of its arrival. The catalogue was showing that it was available (I think in Maidstone and certainly in one or two other branches) so I am hoping it won't be a long wait. Will prove to be an interesting test of the system.

A few days after joining in Maidstone I went into the library in Crawley and joined there as well, and have already borrowed six from them! Three were for reading purposes, and three were from their good selection of music books, and Jake and I have been enjoying working our way through some of the songs in them on our lovely new piano. I think I could be testing on the on-line renewal facility for those ones when the initial lending period comes to an end.

(Interesting to see that reserving books costs 60p in Sussex compared to the 35p in Kent - wonder if it says something about the relative state of the economy in the two counties?)

All of these books borrowed from the library will prove to be an interesting test of me as well. As many people know only too well, I have become rather fond of the combination of both book reading and book ownership, and the challenge that I am setting for myself is to see if I can divorce the one from the other, and to continue to enjoy just as much the pleasures of book reading, without feeling quite as much need for book ownership!

Perhaps I will actually end up feeling a new pleasure in library membership, borrowing and returning my chosen books!

We'll see!

Gift from the sea

One of the new things that we did whilst on holiday in Florida was stay a few days on the coast, away from the fast-paced, action-packed, dashing here and there, four-parks-in-a-day, kind of a life that we can sometimes lead in Orlando. And very nice it was too. Mind you, as Florida coastal holiday novices, we weren't going to veer to far away from what we knew, and so we stuck with the Disney familiar, and stayed at their DVC property at Vero Beach.

It took us a little while to adjust, which in some ways was a shame, as we only had a few days there before heading back to Orlando, and truth be told, I'm not sure if they boys entirely got it. Perhaps they would have preferred to stay closer to the action for the entire fortnight. Anyway, on the afternoon of our second day, Nicky and I went off in search of what we thought Vero Beach should be - a genteel, and quietly upmarket coastal resort, confident of its place in Florida society.

It was hard to find, but eventually we found something that looked like it pretty much fitted the bill. However, it turned out that it closed at 5pm, and we'd arrived just after. Thankfully there were one or two places still open, and it will certainly be somewhere to go back to next time.

In particular, we went into a store called "Exclusively Coastal", where Nicky bought some smellies, and after a rummage around, I came out with a book (yes, I know, what a surprise!).

The book is called "Gift from the Sea" and was written during a coastal holiday in Florida, albeit a holiday on the Gulf coast rather than the Atlantic coast. It was written, in 1955, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh), and using the shells she finds by the seashore as a starting point, reflects on various aspects of life, and it is a actually a rather lovely read. Just occasionally one is aware that this is a book written almost 60 years ago, but more often than not, it seems to have something to say to us today, especially when it comes to the distractions of the busy lives that we all lead.

It's a short book, and well worth a read. If anyone fancies a borrow, just let me know.

The shortest chapter by far is the first, and, just to give you an idea of the book, here it is:

1. The Beach

The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit. One never learns. Hopefully, one carries down the faded straw bag, lumpy with books, clean paper, long over-due unanswered letters, freshly sharpened pencils, lists and good intentions. The books remain unread, the pencils break their points and the pads rest smooth and unblemished as the cloudless sky. No reading, no writing, no thoughts even - at least, not at first.

At first, the tired body takes over completely. As on shipboard, one descends into a deck-chair apathy. One is forced against one's mind, against all tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the seashore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today's tides of all yesterday's scribblings.

And then, some morning in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in a city sense - no - but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor. Perhaps a channelled whelk, a moon shell or even an argonaut.

But it must not be sought for or - heaven forbid! - dug for. No, no dredging of the sea bottom here. That would defeat one's purpose. The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

Wallet

Bought myself a new wallet last week, and have just transferred things over to it. Can now fit everything into it, but the one thing that it is missing is space for a picture. Mind you, the picture in my old wallet was a little out of date. As a sign of how long I'd had it, this was the photo I'd had in my wallet for rather a long time!

Fantasy

The new season is upon us, and MOTD is on the telly. Normal service has perhaps already been resumed, with Spurs in 5th place (i.e. one place below the Champions League!) in the table, but hey, we have a 100% win record, and so I can't complain too much!

Yesterday, Jake registered a team on the Fantasy Football website, and I have joined it to our work league. Will be interesting to see how he gets on. He's already been contemplating his first round of substitutions!

Lodge update

It's been a while since I posted an update on lodge progress, and today seems like a pretty good day to do one, especially as the very good news about exchange on sale came through today, with hoped for completion next week.

The only major outstanding on the build is the exterior cladding, and that is hopefully going to be arriving on Monday, so it it may be declared to be just about finished in around a week's time, which will be fantastic.

As can be seen from these pictures, it really is starting to look like a home, and I think that, mentioning no names, a couple of people are starting to get rather excited!

Pictures not painted

Driving back between Tunbridge Wells and Crawley today, I was struck by a memory. It had just started to rain, and for reasons I can't fathom, I thought about a set of inks.

There were eight of them, they came in little bottles, and each bottle came in a small, square cardboard box with an illustration connected to the colour of the ink. The eight boxes were arranged into two rows of four, one on top of the other, and all together they came in a clear plastic case.

They were originally spotted in an art shop. It may have been locally or perhaps on holiday (maybe a rainy day on a summer holiday - perhaps a connection that sparked a memory - who knows?), but once spotted, for reasons that probably couldn't be clearly articulated, they were wanted. Truth be told, I probably wanted them because they looked nice in their case and the boxes had fun illustrations. It's not like I had much idea what to do with a set of artist's inks.

However, Mum was with me, and was persuaded to purchase the inks (Mum - you really were amazingly generous!) and they were brought home with much pride.

But here's the thing. I remember the inks very clearly - I remember how they looked, the bottles, the boxes and their illustrations, how the set fitted together into the case, and I took much pleasure from owning them. However, I have absolutely no recollection of ever using them to paint a picture!

In fact, I think I probably still have them somewhere - they may well be in one of those boxes in the loft containing those 'treasured possessions from years gone by from which one simply cannot be parted'.

Well, maybe next time I open a box and find them, I should open the bottles and paint a picture or two. I think I've waited long enough!

Drs

Morning = GP

Afternoon = Neurologist

Evening = Osteopath

All good. Overall conclusion - think I'll be ok !!

Robin

Not the only Robin we are remembering

Robin

We're all waking up to some pretty sad news today about the death of Robin Williams, and millions of us will have our own special memories connected to the amazing talent who was, amongst other things, an alien from the planet Ork, a loony screaming into a microphone in Vietnam, an inspirational English teacher, a dragged up Mrs Doubtfire, Hook's Peter Pan, or a wonderful blue Genie.

For me two things really stand out:

Firstly, Dead Poets. What a film! In fact, it was so good that I was so utterly wrapped up in the movie that I completely failed to notice the girl sat next to me in the cinema who was trying to get my attention. Still, that story came with a happy ending.

Secondly, You Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me. Wonderful! Robin Williams brought some of his own special brand of pixie dust and truly did create a moment of Disney magic that will simply never be forgotten.

We'll miss him.

Valhalla

Thanks to the rain in Valhalla it looks like being a rather late night, and the way things are looking at the moment, it might not be Rory's day. As things stand, the winner may come from the penultimate group, Fowler or Mickelson.

Been downloading versions of holiday ride photos with the attraction borders on today. If you want a laugh, here's a picture of me looking petrified by a plastic dinosaur!

PGA

Loving the US PGA golf - very difficult to pick a winner at this stage - lots of players within a couple of shots of the lead. Still rooting for Rory!

Having caught up with Mum and Dad earlier on, thought I'd post a couple of photos that Dad might enjoy.


Also on the topic of photos - Bec, we found the Zephy pictures!

Weekend

Yay - weekend

Like 2 day weeks

Sent from my iPad

Work

After back home comes back to work

Got the emails back under control

Might get a few more things under control tomorrow

Managed to stay awake all day

It was touch and go at times

Home

Home

Tired

Off to bed now

Back to work tomorrow

Sent from my iPad

Day 14 - MCO

It's that post from the airport time. We're at Gate 85 waiting for boarding to start, having had the usual straightforward transit through MCO. Security lines were nice and short today.

Packed up in room this morning, then deposited bags at the Downtown check in. The boys went in to Quest for a while and Nicky and I hid out at Starbucks (new Downtown Starbucks actually quite nice).

Quick lunch from the HoB counter service and then a movie at AMC. It was actually a recording of a stand up show by a comedian I'd never heard of, but he was pretty good.

And finally to the airport - by the southern route for a change.

Right, I expect they'll start calling rows for boarding soon ...

Sent from my iPhone

Day 13 - 4 parks

Brief highlights
(note - not all members of the party participated in all attractions)

Park 1 - Studios
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
Tower of Terror
Toy Story Mania
Animation Academy
Backlot Tour

Park 2 - Epcot
Reflections of China
Voices of Liberty
Gran Fiesta Mexico Boat Tour
Club Cool
Mission Space

Park 3 - Animal Kingdom
Festival of the Lion King
Dinosaur
Dinoland Carnival Games
Expedition Everest

Park 4 - Magic Kingdom
Space Mountain
Steam Train
Big Thunder Mountain
Splash Mountain
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

Tired now. Very tired.

Day 12 - Typhoon / storm

Today was the day of the Lobster - as Granddad will have seen from the picture sent to Twitter!

After lunch, and a quick trip to Goodings in search of Ghiradelli hot chocolate, as we'd seen that there wasn't any in the shop at Downtown (and no luck in Goodings either) we decided to head to a water park, and went for our first ever trip to Typhoon Lagoon.

Unfortunately, we'd all just got into our tubes and started floating down the lazy river when the staff announced that all of the water attractions were being closed because there was a storm in the area! We hung around for a little while, but the sky did get pretty dark, and there was definitely thunder and lightning in the area, and so we decided that is was sensible to beat a hasty retreat, so we came back home for a while before heading Downtown for the evening for some souvenir and gift shopping, as well as to visit the Earl for some of his particularly fine sandwiches.

Off to bed now, for tomorrow we carpe our final diem in full - it's going to be a 'Four Parks in a Day' day!!

Day 11 - more late night Magic

Another slow start to the day - we're getting into the swing of this holiday thing! Plan had been to go to Olivia's at our resort for a late breakfast, but it turned out that we were too late, so we headed out in search of an IHOP. The one near Crossroads was packed out, and there was no sign of any space in the car park at all, and so we headed up I4 to the Sand Lake exit and to the IHOP on I-Drive just up from the Sand Lake junction. That one was also packed, but we could at least find a spot to park, so we decided to go for it. We only had to wait 5 mins or so for a table, and we were seated in our usual area - which we are used to having pretty much to ourselves, but which was full up and very noisy.

Breakfast was to IHOP's normal standards, and then we took a long time to drive the short distance up to the top of I-Drive and the Premium up there. In fact we didn't quite make it, and ended up parking at the Outdoor World (obviously tempted to go in and buy a chair so that I could sit half way up a tree!) and walk the rest of the way, which was definitely quicker.

We did a good tour of Premium, which was also very busy - probably due to this being a tax free clothes shopping weekend in Orlando (back to school deal from the state) but the boys failed to find the trainers that they were looking for. One was pretty laid back and relaxed about this, and one slightly less so - I'll leave you to guess which was which. So, we popped over to a sports shop in the Florida Mall, and both of them scored the new Nikes they were after.

By this time we decided we'd been away from the parks for just too long, and so this evening we've been by bus to MK, and have between us managed to do Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, Pecos Bill for pulled pork, Big Thunder, watched Wishes from Main Street, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, the Main St Electrical Parade, brownies from the Main Street bakery, some Dole Whip, and a little bit of light souvenir shopping.

Not a bad evening at all.

And obviously I have taken many, many photos (and not all of them have the castle in, but probably most!). However, as it is tomorrow already, I will close for now, and will try to do some uploading and photo-posting tomorrow.

Day 10 - lazy day

Today has been a lazy day - a truly holiday-ish kind of day where we really haven't done very much at all, and isn't that a nice thing to say!

This evening Jake and Owen have been to Downtown to see the new Marvel film (Guardians of the Galaxy) that came out today, and Nicky and I have been to LBVFS for the obligatory Old Navy trip (where they took 10% off the bill due to their current promotion, and I made a point of showing them a 15% off coupon that I had found on my phone saying that I'd rather have that, which threw them into confusion and we ended up getting 25% off - I love these small victories !!) and then we went to "Sweet Tomatoes" at Crossroads for tea, and can thoroughly recommend it for future visits - good value and tasty buffet.

Otherwise, really not very much to report from today - maybe we'll get up to a bit more tomorrow!

Day 9 - Nouba

Up at a reasonable time today (thankfully with no long term ill effects of tennis with Jake!) and out the door to Epcot and fast passing for Soarin'. Good as ever, although we were saying that we are looking forward to the new film coming - not sure when it is due.

Due to lack of supermarket trip yet on this leg of our adventure, provisions in our villa are a bit thin, and so we'd not had much by way of breakfast so next stop was the (Fountain View) Starbucks, which by comparison to a normal Starbucks was actually pretty rubbish, but managed to serve us some drinks and snacks.

Next fast pass was for Nemo and so we climbed aboard our clam shells, but the best bit was the underwater viewing area inside the pavilion, where between us I expect we must have taken a couple of hundred photos, and due to the challenges of low light conditions and constantly moving marine life, I expect upwards of 90% of them are blurred.

Our final fast pass for the day was for a character meet and greet, and so we had some photos taken with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy, before heading out of the park and to Beaches and Cream, where we gave a pretty good account of ourselves with the Kitchen Sink.

Back to base for a short pit stop before getting the boat to Downtown where we have spent the rest of the day - first at Splitsville where we played a couple of games, stopping in at a couple of shops (Owen got himself some new headphones), booking a cinema trip for tomorrow for the boys, La Nouba, and then dinner at House of Blues.

La Nouba is extremely difficult to describe, so I'm not going to try too hard! It's part traditional circus acts (clowns, juggling, trapeze, tumbling ...) and part completely bonkers and and Cirque-ish, but still very funny and entertaining.