This Mr Putin is a nightmare plus other stuff

I cannot possibly understand why this idiot has decided to attack/invade Ukraine, the reasons of anti Nazism don't make any kind of sense and as the war continues you clearly see iit is not wanting to take back old territory but genocide.

You can be pretty damn sure that the Russian people are not for this to happen but seem to be helpless. The financial restraints being imposed on the country and its rich Oligarch’s might help in the long term and it would be so easy for this to develop in to another world war. With Putin having the finger on the nuclear button they only real and safe way is for the Russian people to rise up and kill the bastard.

Many countries are offering help but the Ukrainian Army seems to have better moral than the Russian;s as television news has been showing down and out Russian soldiers who had been captured just turning on their own generals.

Chelsea losing to Brentford 1-4 at Stamford bridge yesterday ( yes Brentford that recent second division club) was terrible to watch. When we come to the States we bring out Amazon TV firestick which is already preloaded with Apps for Netflix, You tube  etc but we like to watch Formula One motor racing, Premier league football and of course the Champions League  and so we end up up with lots of different apps as follows, SLING, FUBO, PEACOCK, ESPN . I did try via a VPN and it worked once then it looks like that Sky recognised this was not a genuine UK IP and so were unable to watch any football and Formula One, so hence all the Apps with subscriptions, some are free for 7 or 30 days but then you pay but in the end its worth it as the TV programs on these rented houses only provide the basics.

Well its Noels 80th Birthday this August and also our 51 st Wedding Anniversary in May and the anniversary could not really celebrated last year due to covid restrictions. So we have decided to organise a big party to celebrate  both Noels Birthday and our wedding anniversary but also Jennifers birthday also in August and so on the 21st August at the Runnymede Hotel we are having a big shindig with lots of family and friends invited. All the invitations have been sent by email but some of the friends invited are overseas viz New Zealand, Germany, Hong Kong etc and Covid reg’s may still be restricting travel at that time but we should have a goodly number of guests.

Talk about a busy year, we get home from Florida on 2nd May and on the 21st May we are off for our delayed 50th Wedding Anniversary cruise on Seaborn  21 st May departing Tel Aviv on 22nd May and finishing up in Istanbul after touring the Greek islands. We are planning a few extra days in Istanbul after the cruise and finally return home on 9th June which is the same day our son and daughter in law are expecting the second child. I have travelled quite a lot in my lifetime but never visited Istanbul and looking forward to it. Ironically I looked at going to Tel Aviv say a couple of days but was shocked at the Hotel prices and also transport costs and so decided to forget the idea. This then changed when Seabourn informed us the the British Airways flight we were booked on for the 22nd has been cancelled and we now have to fly on the 21st and stay overnight at their expense.

Well to finish this blog, we visited the Port Charlotte Mall which is about 20 minutes away for Jennifer to look as getting some new dresses and often you have no luck but today we found three that will be great for Beales but tomorrow we plan to return and look at JC penny and Dillard's for a further look, so while Jennifer is looking Noel will either get a haircut of have a foot massage, lets see what's open. Well the weather today is a break from the norm, there was heavy rain last night and this morning its cool, around 24 C and grey overcast but hopefully tomorrow should be a lot better and returning to the usual 28-31 C. Well that's it for the time being.

March Update going in to April

Well its a quiet Sunday today and although we went down to Port Charlotte to look at a potential rentals house for next year, we looked on the outside only but will be able to see the inside later on next week but in the meantime I thought I would spend a few minutes on various matters good and bad.

I am not sure if I mentioned how dirty the BBQ grill was in the first house we rented but this was easily outdone by the absolute disaster of the BBQ in the current house which we moved to on 31 March. I have informed the housing agents in no uncertain terms how unhappy we are with this and lets see what they can do to fix. The first BBQ grill plates were still covered with meat and grease and so I complained and they sent somebody round to sort it which they should have done in the beginning but failed to do and I had hoped that when we moved house they would have learnt from the troubles in the first house and made sure all was well here,only it wasn't and you will be able to see photos as below.

First dirty BBQ

We have visited the Lighthouse restaurant and bar a couple of times, this is a good place, always busy which is a good sign but they do excellent burgers and boiled Gulf Bay shrimps and together with a large carton of Iced tea its an excellent meal. The second time we visited there was a bloody gale blowing and so we had to hold everything down on the table to stop it blowing away which is the price you pay for being by the coast. On the other hand further round the Golf Coast they were experiencing house wrecking tornados so it could have been worse.

Last Friday the 1st April we paid a visit to Sarasota Costco to top our stocks of food and plonk for the next month and it seemed like a comedy of error had struck us down. As we pulled in to the Costco car park a warning light came on the dashboard of the car, oh well what's this all about and it a little while to find the right page in the book and it was something to do with automatic braking if you were reversing and were likely to back in to something. Oh well lets see what happens when we restart the car and also after I cleaned all the rear sensors and camera all was well. However in Costco we did a good shop of about $ 380 , amazing value for what we purchased, and whilst in UK Costco accept most credit cards they only accept a couple which I don’t have and VISA debit which I used the first time we were there with no problem. Anyway the card machine rejected my Visa debit card????and I tried again with same card but again then failed. Then we tried Jennifer's card which also failed, what the bloody hell is going on, so there we were with a trolley full of cold meat, wine and lots of other stuff and sufficient cash. The check out assistant said if you have another card there is an ATM in the corner of the shop so I breathed a sigh of relief and headed over to the ATM and took out 400 dollars in cash. Whilst going thro the process on the ATM which was mighty complicated it briefly said this is an English card do you want to be changed in Sterling to which I entered NO, well I think it was entered as I was pressing the button the screen writing disappeared and the cash was counted in nice twenty dollar bills.

So back to the check out and because of the delay they had to cancel the first lot of scanning and do it all over again but this time of course with cash it was no problem. After finishing our shopping we went to Five Guys for a burger and fries, excellent burgers these people serve and after lunch back via Publix supermarket for some basics and then back to the new house. It was now that I discovered what a disaster the BBQ is and there is no way in the world I am going to cook on this as it was also unsafe. First of all it was covered in grease, the grills had also bits of meats and god knows what but also the burner covers are all rusted away and so you have quite large flames in some parts of the grill and not in the other parts, not acceptable.

Anyway the next day as usual checking my credit cards and bank account, something I do every day religiously to ensure I notice errors quickly I noticed that the Fair FX prepaid credit  which I used in Costco had been charged as Sterling and so in the process of amalgamation they had converted the Euro and Sterling balances in to USD and so my Euros and Sterling are gone. Not quite what I expected and so have sent a big letter of complaint , lets see what happens..

Well that's enough for today