Five days

So, the countdown is nearly complete and this time next week we'll be in San Francisco (I'd like to say sunny San Francisco but looking at the latest forecasts I'm not too sure).

Jake and I had haircuts yesterday morning, and when Jane asked Jake what he was looking forward to, the first thing that he mentioned was visiting the Ghiradelli chocolate factory - love it! Don't know if we'll manage to bring any home as if we go there fairly early in our holiday, my guess is that we'll have devoured everything we buy long before we leave LA. Perhaps we should see if we can get some shipped directly to home.

Our home improvement plans are coming along well. We had a new garage door fitted this week, and this means that Mike can start on the conversion project as soon as we get back from holiday (turning the garage into a storage space at the front and a games room behind). We've had the window survey done, so hopefully our new windows and doors are being made, and can be fitted not long after we get back from California. Also Nicky had obtained a few quotes for doing brick paving across the driveway and front garden, and I think we've decided who we will be going ahead with. Should be quite a transformation at home over the next few months.

I finished off Chris Evans' book earlier this week. A good read and I'm looking forward to the next installment. Looking at his twitter posts it sounds like most of the writing for his next book has been done, and it should be out later thuis year. (Also from his tweets he went to Disneyland Paris for Friday and Saturday - sounds like it rained!)

I know that going to San Francisco and down the coast is going to be fantastic, but I'm really looking forward to going to Disneyland and seeing where it all began, adding another two Disney parks to our done list. I'm prepared for the castle to be a big disappointment compared with Orlando and Paris, but have high hopes for the rest of the parks, as well as staying on their doorstep at the Grand Californian villas. By staying there Sunday to Thursday night we're getting a really good deal with our DVC points.

The other exciting news is that we've just paid up for some more points (home resort Bay Lake Towers) and should have plenty of points for lots more Disney holidays. Given the plans we already have for 2010 we'll probably end up carrying forward some of this year's points, but should give us scope to have lots more fun in 2011.

Sunday evening

It's Sunday evening and my legs ache. Been playing football rather a lot with Jake, taking advantage of the dry and mild weather. We've been playing outside whilst Chelsea were on the telly, and the last Jake heard they were 1-0 up. Now he's playing on FIFA10, and at some point I'm going to have to let him know that Blackburn got a late equaliser! The football question that I'm contemplating is whether it is still to soon to start daring to dream that Spurs might bag the 4th place spot in the league and get into the Champions League next season? They won away yesterday, and Villa only drew, and today Liverpool have lost. Come on you Spurs (and an FA Cup quarter final replay in the week as well) - it's all too much!

Garage clearance is coming on really well in advance of our new garage door being fitted this week, and then Mike making a start on the games room conversion as soon as we get back from holiday. I'd like to claim some credit, but don't really deserve any - Nicky worked like a Trojan whilst I sat by the side of the pool this morning watching Jake swimming. No blogging from the side of the pool today as my phone battery had died, so I carried on with reading Chris Evans' book (trying not to cry when he explained how his Mum told him that his Dad wasn't going to get better). Jake and I supported the effort in the garage when we got back from swimming by playing a game of pool now that we can walk around the table easily.

Only twelve days to holiday now. Nicky has sent an e-mail to our San Francisco hotel to ask them about the best way to get from the airport to them - their first customer service challenge from us - I wonder whether we will accept the first room they offer us when we get there!

Zizzi

Enjoying a meal at Zizzi in Bluewater. Taken on Nicky's iPhone and emailed straight to blog.

Sent from my iPhone

By the way, the original post was done from the iphone whilst we were at the restaurant, but the photo didn't come out properly on this page. Need to investigate some settings and get this sorted out, but for the time being I've uploaded the photo to Flickr, so here it is!

Swan and swim

Today was the next of Jake's big swims, and this morning he did 24 lengths, or 600m, to get his next badge. Nicky and I both went along to cheer him on. We were a bit annoyed (as was Jake) that he wasn't given a lane of his own to swim in, so he probably ended up doing a fair bit more than the 600m he needed to due to the dodging of other swimmers that was required.

He might do some level badges next rather than moving straight on to the next distance, but anyway, I was certainly very impressed with this morning's swim - about 23 lengths more than I would manage.

After coming home and taking the dog for a wander in the woods (which are now passable again thanks to a few days of dry weather) we picked up Nanny and Grandad and headed off to the Swan in West Malling for Sunday lunch. Scrummy as always - I particularly enjoyed the braised beef!

We were back just after kick off in the last of the cup quarter finals, although Jake and I went and had our own game outside rather than watching it all. After the game it was the draw for the semis, and the good news is that we're still on for a Chelsea against Spurs final, provided that Chelsea can beat Aston Villa in their semi, and Spurs beat Fulham in the replay and then beat Portsmouth it their semi. Could be interesting, although we will be in California when the semifinals are being played.

In Apple news, Nicky has finally got her iphone up and running, after several calls to Vodafone, and I'm still loving the Mac. I've been importing some photos today, and have also downloaded the Delicious Library software, and we've been enjoying scanning barcodes from some of our books! Finished the latest Nick Hornby book, Juliet Naked, the other day. A good read - thanks for the birthday pressie Heather.

Jersey

I am in Jersey with Darren as we are off to a meeting with the board of Dave's company in the morning.

Attached is a picture of the sunset taken in St Helier across the road from our hotel.

iHappy

Today Nicky and I had our trip out to Bluewater, with the intention of treating ourselves to a number of things that we had been promising each other that we would get once the Haig sale had been completed.

As a result, I am now typing this entry on my new iMac, which is just terrific! So far I've transferred some of our music into itunes, some of our photos into iphoto, and had a bit o f a play with some of the other features. Lots more still to discover and I haven't even installed the iwork disk yet.

We got a few other things as well whilst we were there, including an iphone for Nicky, which is currently charging up and which should go live with her number on Friday, and also a couple of Radley bags.

Jake had asked if he could have Band Hero for the Wii, but neither Game nor HMV had it, so we've ordered it from Amazon on express delivery instead.

Anyway, can't waffle on now, have lots more photos to transfer!