Thursday 19th October- Off to Sarasota

We have rented an apartment in Sarasota from friend’s who live in Wey Road near us. So we headed down the coast and one and a half hours later arrived at our destination- Weybridge.

Yes, the apartment is in an area called Weybridge and was built by Taylor Woodrow a UK based company and also the areas and street names are English street names and so we feel very much at home. The apartment is a very nice two bedroom/bathroom overlooking a lake which has an alligator and many birds, see photos. So swimming in the lake appears to be out and as I do not feel like another Steve Irwin (RIP) we shall stay away. Interesting enough, on the news last night was a story about two fishermen off the coast of Sarasota. They were in their small boat and in jumped a stingray and promptly panicked both the animal and fisherman and so the stingray barbed one of the guys right through the heart, similar to Steve, only this time the fisherman did not try to pull it out and his went to hospital where the surgeons actually pulled the barbed end through the heart rather than pull it straight out, This guy is still alive although critical. Its amazing really that this type of attack never happens then suddenly in the space of a few short weeks it’s happened again!

I digress, in the afternoon we did some shopping; there is a small mall about two/three miles away with some good shops. Dinner that night was a shared New York Sirloin steak, these steaks are bigger than I thought, and they are 16 ounces each. The cook was Chef Noel and I can safely say it was the best New York Sirloin I think I have ever tasted. We have a few left so if anybody fancies a steak in Sarasota, give us a call.

Tuesday/Wednesday 17/18th October

Well the flight over was pretty much OK, the BA 777 was quite full however the crew were good and the food not too bad at all. We were met at Tampa Airport by Adrian and then headed off to their Condo by the sea in Indian Shores. A couple of nightcaps later we were off to bed after watching Adrian’s new Philips 50 inch Plasma HDTV television. What a great machine this is.

On Wednesday we did a long walk along the beach but as it was quite hot and we were jetlagged we headed back via an ice cream parlour. Referring back to the Jet lag bit, as we were walking along the road from Adrian Condo we passed by some workers who were digging a hole right next to an electricity pole. As they dug deeper they suddenly found the bank caving in and they had to get out of the hole pretty damn quick to avoid being buried. At the same time the pole began to tilt towards the road. They suddenly realised what was happening and went to get a JCB type digger and tied a chain around the pole to steady it. And then they all stopped work and started scratching their heads wondering what to do next. All this was talking place whilst I was holding my camera and did not take a single photo of this event.

The afternoon was spent visiting a local COSTCO stores to pick up some supplies for our stay in Sarasota, we do like this retailer as their meat is excellent. In the evening we went with Adrian and Joyce to the Clearwater Yacht Club for a Greek Evening. The food was extremely good and after an ouzo and wine we bid farewell and headed home for bed.

Doesn't Time fly

Well its been a fairly busy week and we start to get ready for our trip to Florida. We are leaving on Tuesday 17Th for three weeks, spending part of the time at Indian Shores, then Sarasota and finally at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Clearwater (which is unlike any other Holiday Inn you have seen). The journey is planned to enable us to join our friends at a Birthday party in early November to celebrate Joyce Jenkyns birthday, age information is held secret. We will update our Blogs with our travels and exploits over the next few weeks.







Anyway, last Friday night we were invited by our friends in Wey Road, Toni & Gerry to go to an opening night of a new David Lloyd Restaurant chain that was offering a fresh approach to high quality take away food at a location in Richmond. The chain is known as Dinners Made which is an idea taken from an American chain called Dinners Done. The idea behind this concept is that you order you menu on the Internet then arrive to prepare the food and then take home the finished product and cook. The staff will help you prepare the vegetables and provide advise on cooking procedures whilst they will have partly prepared the vegetables in advance for you. They also have a restaurant and bar where you can eat a drink to your hearts content, which is exactly what we did. As Gerry's company provide the meat we all tried the steaks and chops which were truly excellent. So even if you do not want to go to the hassle of preparing your own dinner, to eat there is fine and with a great atmosphere.
It was good evening for the wine producers of France as they received an unexpected bonus as a result of our efforts. for more information go to http://www.dinnersmade.co.uk/

On Saturday night we joined some friends at their home in Reading. These were Noels ex business colleagues and it was a great night reminiscing about people and places. The discussions covered everything from how bad the Blair (ites) were/are to the current immigration policy (or lack of one)
Rogers Cassoulet was excellent and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening but it was rather late as we got home about 2.30 am, a bit late for us old ones. As a result Sunday was a slow day.

Spamalot- A great new London Show

Earlier this week we went in to the 'smoke' to see a performance of the new London Show called 'Spamalot' written by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame.
The show originally opened in New York last year to great acclaim and now it has finally reached London in all its glory. Tim Curry is excellent as the King and the rest of the cast. are brilliant. The story is very loosely based on King Arthur and the search for the Holy Grail. It jumps time zones in a brilliant manner and is extremely funny.
You can see the cast are having a great time and that they are enjoying their work and so if anybody likes Monty Python stuff then this is the show for you. And even if you do not like Monty python this is still a great show in it's own right.
See link below for more information

http://www.montypythonsspamalot.com/

Saturday 30th September- More rain and we do need it

My other sister Madeleine and her husband Ken arrived for the weekend. In the evening we went to the local church hall to see the Weybridge Mail Voice choir together with the Hart Mail Voice Choir for a great evening’s entertainment.

The voices were great and they provided a very different choice of music and then combined for the last few songs. About 250 people attended the evening and they provided wine at the half time break (beats oranges any day)

Friday 29th September- It’s raining again

We left the Hotel after a heart breakfast and headed for Longleat Safari Park

(http://www.longleat.co.uk/). It was a greyish day but looked to improve. We decided only to do the Safari Park bit and ignore the train and boat rides and so we headed of to the jungle.
We took a some pictures during our visit and they are on..
They have done a good job and it is well organised and even the animals follow the instructions not to eat the guests. We decided to stay away from the Monkey area
as these will damage your car and are know to rip out radio aerials, windscreen wipers and even wing mirrors and petrol cap covers. This is worse than the bad places in London.
Anyway the Tiger and Lions were the main attraction for us and we had a very good view, so see the photos on ourPhoto Blog at

http://noelgroves.phanfare.com/

We left the park around midday so as top avoid the Friday night traffic and headed home where we arrived around 2.30 pm.

Thursday 28th September- Its time to leave Salcombe

After the usual good breakfast we headed down town to the over 60’s coffee morning which is held in a purpose built location right by the sea with a great view over the Salcombe Harbour. After tea and biccies we headed of to Darting ton Hall (www.dartingtonhall.com)

This was a beautiful spot where you can stay in the small amount of rooms that are available whilst visiting the gardens. Unfortunately time was running away and we had an excellent lunch at the ‘White Hart’ pub located in the park. We had decided that we would like to visit the Longleat Safari park on the way home and this is located not far from Trowbridge. Our plan was to arrive at a Hotel we had booked at Bradford upon Avon around 4.30 pm however there was a bad accident on the A 303 which delayed us for a while and so we arrived at our destination around 6pm. The hotel was the Woolley Grange Hotel (www.woolleygrangehotel.co.uk) and was a very old hotel set in lovely grounds which we could not see as it was dark! Anyway the rooms were nice and the food was excellent.. Our bedroom was unfortunately above the kitchen and this became apparent later in the evening when they insisted on dropping empty bottles in to their bottle bank up to almost midnight. Needless top say I complained the following morning. Otherwise this was a very nice hotel and we would stay again but in a different room.

We had a lovely time in Salcombe and Annette and Peter made great hosts and Cyril thoroughly enjoyed his holiday.

Wednesday 27th September- Here comes de rain

Well the rain arrived as promised but we had decided to go along the coast to visit Dartmouth which is a very nice town with an attractive harbour and there place was bustling. En-route we stopped for a visit at Torcross which was a small town which was used during the Second World War as a trial landing site for D-day. Unfortunately many American service men lost their lives when during the practise run they were spotted by German submarines and two troop carriers were sunk. There is now a old American Tank to mark the spot. Torcross is also the location of Slapton Ley a wildlife sanctuary which is a fresh water lake which is next to sea and protected only by a road. There were many birds on this lake and also it is a sight for conservation experts to spend there time. For more info visit (www.slnnr.org.uk/)

Then on to Dartmouth we went where we were in urgent need of a cup of tea, and some of us had the Devon Cream Tea, which went down very well indeed.

This is a nice little town with small shopping street and also the Dart Valley Steam train leaves from here. The weather was not great so we decided to head of back to Salcombe. It was rather grey and misty so I decided not to take any photos of the bays en-route home.

All photos on Photo Blog http://noelgroves.phanfare.com/

Tuesday 26th September- What beautiful weather

It was a a really beautiful day and so we headed of to Kingsbridge to take a harbour tour to Salcombe Bay and almost out to sea.. It was a great photo opportunity what with the egrets, oyster catchers and many other birds in great quantities. During the trip we had an excellent view of Salcombe Bay and and also the remains of Salcombe castle which was built by Henry VIII. To protect the harbour from foreign invaders. For more information see link below

www.castleuk.net/castle_lists_south/202/salcombecastle.htmails see

We were able to take may photographs during the boat trip and they are available on

Following a light lunch of smoked salmon we departed to visit the National Trust site called ‘Overbecks’. This was an old house which was used in the first world war as a rest and recuperation site for the many injured personnel. This house has a prominent position on the headland with great views over the estuary. The garden was very nice with many plants just going out of season but this place was well worth the visit. For more information see

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-overbecks/

A very nice day was had by all.

Photo Blog http://noelgroves.phanfare.com/

Monday 25th September Going to Salcombe

Together with Jennifer’s Dad, Cyril we left around 1030 for a pleasant drive to see my sister and husband who live in the Devon village of Salcombe where they have lived for quite some years. Our route took us down the A 303 via Stonehenge which is a group of stones built in the year 3100 BC, for more details see the link below. The journey took on the outside of Exeter and finally via Totnes in to Salcombe. About 200 miles and almost five hours driving.

After a short stay at home and with weather sort of okay we went down town to have a look at Salcombe and have a very necessary drink at the Marine Club.

A few glasses of wine at home and off to bed for all.

http://www.stonehenge.co.uk/about.htm

Its been a funny old week

Well it’s been a funny old week; our plan was too possibly to go to Scotland for a few days but as there were a few things to do in the garden we did not quite make it. The pond filter needed cleaning and also the patio stones and wooden decking also had to be cleaned to stop anybody slipping.

We are expecting Cyril’s sisters and partners this weekend to possible visit and so we need to clean up the place for reasons given earlier. Mady and Ken were also due to come this weekend but had to cancel.

We also went to Windsor for the Wednesday afternoon with a view to take some photographs as it was such a lovely day. However, no sooner did we get there and start walking about the sun disappeared and so only a few pictures were taken.

Well next Monday we drive to down to Salcombe to see my sister Annette and her husband Peter and we are taking Cyril for the ride. Salcombe is a lovely place if the weather is good and so I hope to get some good photos.

Its not long before we go to Florida to attend a close friend birthday party. We are looking forward to this very much.

See more pictures of Windsor on http://noelgroves.phanfare.com/album/120179

The following little article just appeared and I thought it might make you laugh

Sounds Familiar

I was recently diagnosed with AAADD - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder, which manifests itself in this way.

I need to wash my car. As I go to the front door I notice the post on the mat. I decide to open the mail before washing the car. I put the keys on the hall table, and put the junk mail in the waste paper basket and notice that the basket is full, so I decide to put the other letters on the table and empty the rubbish.

But then I say to myself, that as the post-box is near the dustbin, I may as well pay my bills first. I get my cheque book and realise there is only one cheque left - my new cheque is in the drawer of my desk, so I go to my desk, where I find an open bottle of beer I had been drinking, I decide to put the beer in the fridge to keep it cold.

As I went towards the kitchen a vase of flowers catches my eye. They need watering. As I put the beer down on the kitchen unit I notice my reading glasses, which I had been searching for all morning. Before I put them safely on the desk I decide to water the flowers first and put the glasses down on the kitchen unit again. While topping up the flowers I suddenly spot the TV remote, which someone has left on the kitchen table. 1 realise that tonight when we go to watch TV we will be looking for the remote and no one will remember where it is, so I decide to take it back to the TV room where it belongs, but when I watered the flowers I spilt water on the floor, so I put the remote back on the table while I get a kitchen roll to mop up the water. Then 1 head down the hall trying to remember why I am going in that direction and what was I planning to do.

Now it is evening: the car is unwashed, the bills are not paid, there is a bottle of warm beer on the kitchen unit, I cannot watch TV because I can not find the remote or my reading glasses, and I do not know what I have done with my car keys. 1 try to work it out, why have I done so little today. I am really baffled, because I know I have been really busy, and now 1 am really tired. This seems to be a serious problem which needs help. So could you please ask around for a solution to my problem.

P.S. Thought for the week: More money is spent on breast implants and Viagra than on Alzheimer’s research, which means that by the year 2020 there will be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no memory of what to do with them!

Sunday morning bacon sandwich walk to Walton Bridge

On this beautiful Sunday morning it was very nice to go for a walk along by the river to Walton-on-Thames bridge where there is a little riverside cafe serving bacon sandwiches amongst other food items. What could be better after a fast 45 minute walk to end up by the river in the sun tucking in to a bacon and mushroom sandwich together with a cup of tea.
The river looked great today and so we took a few photographs of both the River Thames and also the River Wey. There are some nice houses on Wey Road which back on to the river and so there are few extra pictures on the Phanfare for you to view
http://noelgroves.phanfare.com/album/117284

Well today Chelsea will play Liverpool again and let's hope we win this time.

Its time for a change

Well its been an interesting week what with my PC going bang and there was a delay in SKY starting our new broadband service to us. Now we are established and this means new email address etc.

Jennifer is now jennifergroves@sky.com
Noel is now noelgroves@sky.com

Skype addresses
Noel is noelgroves
Jennifer is noelandjenny