Trips

If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be…

| Richard

So after spending a great few days on Corralejo chilling out in my hotel and spending the evenings drinking and listening to live acoustic rock music with friends in the Rock Island Bar, it was back to normality with work for a couple of days before I headed up to Cleethorpes on the Sunday.

The view from my balcony
The view from my balcony
Coffee time
Coffee time

The plan had been to head up to Cleethorpes to drop off some old Court papers and some crap the ex-girlfriend had sent me with her parents but the ex found out about my plans – she reads my Tweets and this blog to stalk keep up to date with what I’m doing – and threatened to stop them from seeing the one remaining daughter she hasn’t thrown out if they saw me. Nice, eh? Mind you, as it turned out, that was just as well because an accident on the A17 delayed my getting there until later and I had plans to meet up with some old friends for a lovely meal out in town as their treat. Great to catch up with them and to have a load of laughs about Stuff.

Monday saw an impromptu diversion to Covent Garden on my way home for more Christmas Shopping for GT and my daughter (some killer heels for GT that were a leeetle more expensive than I thought but hey, she’s worth it) and then home.

The Tuesday night found GT and I going to KOKO Camden to watch Fear Factory‘s gig. Sadly this was disappointing. They mentioned they were 7 weeks into their tour and it had clearly taken its toll on the lead singer’s vocal chords as he was unable to sing in tune or make much noise for higher notes.

KOKO London
KOKO London
Fear Factory at KOKO Camden
Fear Factory at KOKO Camden

Wednesday and it was another gig: this time it was the Prodigy at the O2 Brixton Academy. We hadn’t realised when we booked the tickets that this was a late show, with the Prodigy not coming on until after midnight and finishing at 1.30am! On a school night! Oops! So GT and I had a meal and a mooch around and then went in to watch the support artists around 11.30pm and then waited for the Prodigy to come on and do a blinding set. They can still definitely do their thing.

We left shortly after and I got home around 3.00am which was just as well as a taxi was booked to collect me at 6.45am to take me to St. Pancras International for a trip over to Paris to see a Client. Back that evening, arriving around 8.45pm which was just as well as I needed to be nearby at our works Christmas do at a Comedy Club. Lots of laughs – why do I always get picked on by the headliners? Same as the Burlesque Shows – and they’d saved me my dinner which was nice.  We got thrown out around 1.30am and we grabbed some taxis to get us home.

Friday and it was time for dinner in Epsom with GT and some friends and to see Indian Elvis in action!

Indian Elvis
Indian Elvis

The food at the Cinnamon Spice is really excellent and we enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine with a great meal before heading home.

More shopping over the weekend and a lovely lunch out in Kingston at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant. Recommended.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day saw drinks with friends at their pub and a lovely meal cooked by GT – part carnivorous for me and part vegetarian (and delicious) – with some of the contents of the Fortnum & Mason hamper I’d been given.

Boxing Day and I was off to Norfolk to see my kids and to watch Norwich City (mainly in the rain and doing OK against a strong Chelsea team).

Today was mainly spent driving: back from Norfolk via Diss to buy Amy a replacement Ka after hers got written off; then on to my Mum’s for lunch and presents; then to Egham to get Amy home and off to work.

Phew!

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

| Richard

Well it took long enough – nine months, in fact – for the lawyers to sort out our agreed settlement and the paperwork, but I’m now finally divorced, as of 17 October 2012 (a little over 22 years after being married). Young, free and single again! Well, maybe not that young…

And the best thing is that my ex-wife and I remain good friends.

So to celebrate, GT and I went off to Venice for the weekend.

OK, it wasnt the only reason we headed off: GT was taking part in the Venice Marathon, which is why I’d booked the Hotel Bucintoro as it was the nearest luxury hotel to the finish line!

And we weren’t disappointed with our suite there, including our own private rooftop balcony overlooking the lagoon:

Panoramic View from our Rooftop Balcony

We celebrated with a bottle of champagne chilled and ready for our arrival:

Cheers!

We had a quick explore and found a superb restaurant near the hotel: La Nuova Perla. So good, we went back there on the Sunday night too!

On Saturday, we headed off to sign on at the Expo on the mainland at San Giuliano Park. It had started raining the night before and we realised that morning that the water levels were rising and beginning to flood Venice, so after signing on, we bought wellies to keep us dry as we went off to do the touristy bit, including enjoying hideously expensive club sandwiches and drinks in a lovely café in the Piazza San Marco and then dinner in a quaint restaurant down the alleys that weave through Venice.

Sunday morning dawned very cold, wet and very windy: not good conditions for anything, let alone 26.2 miles running (including a 3 mile bridge to really test the mind and body). Our water taxi arrived at 6.15am to take us to one of the collection points where the runners boarded buses to take them to the start point on the mainland. I then walked back to the Piazza Le Roma to get on one of the boats that was running – the high tides were closing many stops – and head back to the hotel for breakfast and to watch the marathon.

Despite the conditions, GT was only 45 seconds slower than her London Marathon time! I grabbed her at the finish line and walked her back to our suite and a hot, deep bath. We then ordered up some lunch before heading out later that evening for more pasta and wine.

Monday was a beautiful day, crisp and bright, so we made the most of it with a gondola ride before lunch and another water taxi back to the airport and home.

Bloody Tourists!

Paris Marathon next!

Panoramic View from our Rooftop Balcony
Cheers!
Bloody Tourists!

Goodbye Sofia!

| Richard

So that was an interesting last night out in Sofia: at the end of the Hearing, wine and snacks had been laid on for the Arbitrators, lawyers, experts and the stenographers, so we did our best, finishing the (decent) red wine and the chilled white as well.

We then asked the ‘opposition’ lawyers where we should go for dinner and ended up going eating and drinking with them. My suit got doused by a bottle of beer that decided to blow out the glass bottle base: dripping wet sleeve and more beer over my shirt… which was nice… Fortunately, it is going to be cleaned anyway as a week working with chain-smoking Greeks has left me with a filthy, smelly suit!

200 leva later and ‘our’ lawyers rang to tell us they’d moved to the more comfortable Sheraton – thanks for leaving us! – and to meet them there for drinks. Who were we to say no? So we walked to the Sheraton – going past a Fetish club that looked interesting – and went downstairs to the “Scandal” bar for drinks. The general low ambient light levels and red upholstery rang some alarm bells; the pole dancers more so! Funny how the hotel website doesn’t seem to list this ‘facility’.

Katy, the English stenographer, and I then spent the next hour or so being bitchy about the pole dancers and more particularly their poor choices in lingerie before being asked by our lawyers to mark them out of 10. Very few got over 5/10 though one did have a nice bum and another clearly used her pole for exercise! The Greeks seemed to rate them somewhat higher…

At this point, I did the News of the World reporter bit: made my excuses and left. Somewhat underwhelmed by my first visit to such an establishment – I clearly lead a sheltered life…

Shakedown Run

| Richard

So after a bit of a nightmare journey to get to Birmingham, I did the deal and Wilf was wheeled out of Roger’s workshop. At which point it began raining…

We’d fixed the TomTom Rider’s RAM mount to the clutch lever bolt and I plugged in the address in Grimsby and off I went. A couple of coffees later and I set the TomTom to my home address. One annoying thing was that when riding, I was not allowed to change my destination to a previously stored one, no doubt due to some idiotic ’safety’ feature. No doubt they’d want me to pull onto the hard shoulder to do this … where a number of accidents happen!

Anyway, on arrival home, I checked the trip statistics and discovered that my moving average speed for the 380 mile journey had been xxmph. Oops! Best not put the number.

OK, my back ached a little but having spent five hours in the saddle, it had turned out to be a remarkably good high speed tourer. Maybe I need to rethink my choice of bike for the RBLR1000, a 1,000 mile ride in 24 hours I’m doing for charity.