Archie James Groves Christening

Our newest grandson Archie was Christened today at St Michaels Church in Aldershot followed by a reception at the Hale Village Hall near Farnham.

The Vicar who conducted the service was the same guy who Christen Ethan some years ago and is a very nice and humorous chap who make the the event important by making it more personal. The event was attended y about 50 friends and neighbours and of course family and we all enjoyed the service. When the Vicar was holding Archie he tried to grab hold of the Vicars microphone and try to eat it which caused some laughter as he attempted several time to do this.

The God parent were the same as Ethan’s and so they were Becky’s sisters and Brother and also Joanne as the fourth godparent. Archie was really excellent and calm during the event and did not seem to worry about having water poured over his head on two occasions. At the reception Archie was handed around quite a bit which he seemed to enjoy the intention.

Unfortunately Jennifer was still suffering from her fall at Woking Community Hospital whilst Noel was trying to get over a bout of Conjunctivitis which meant that NO shaking hands or cuddles with family and children to avoid passing it on. Unfortunately this eye problem Noel had experienced  quite a lot in the past when travelling around Asia and it makes him rather tired and so we left the reception a bit early that we would normally have done so .

But it was a very nice event enjoyed by all.

 

Noel’s Political comments- About a lot of annoying things

Well I am getting pretty fed up with ALL POLITICIANS’ They are a really nasty bunch of people. Just look how they glower over Boris Johnson and also try to take out Trump with ridiculous  nay Trumped up charges when the true crooks, like Tony Blair and Joe ( send me a buck)Biden and other members of the so called US elite seem to get away with it. The recent demise of Knicker’s Sturgeon was brilliant and just shows how stupid she was yet she conned thousands of honest Scottish people for years with her rubbish. The problems she caused for the sake of causing problems is well known but ask her about the failing schools, serious drug and alcohol abuse and the state of the NHS is and she talks about independence but now thank heavens she has gained that status by hopefully being unemployed.

Femail politicians can easily be as bad as male ones an Sturgeon is a prime example along with Mrs May, Liz Truss and of course the strange woman in in New Zealand Ms Jacinda Arden who has made NZ a laughing stock..I cannot say that the men are any better and in fact if we could get rid of governments all around the world and just rely on the locals the world would be a happier place. Most Chinese and Russsian people would much prefer to live a normal life without Herr NAZI Putin attacking countries just because he is not feeling well and needs something to do.

Another off my pet hates if the PRESS who largely write what they think and not the news. What happened to real NEWS as today most papers publish opinion as news as though us poor humans cannot decide for ourselves whether to believe or not. The press rely ll the time on the following words. COULD, MIGHT,  and without those words they would have noting to say. The headlines like Putin Could Nuke the UK is I believe is far from the truth. We MIGHT run out of Tomatoes so sending the some of the British Public running to raid all the supermarkets they can to collect tomatoes which they wont eat and then chuck away as they have to many. What sense is there in that.

Another annoying think in the press is creating a title to make you open the article, such as 23 years old will not not play for Arsenal. so you open it and right down the bottom of the article it says he wont play for Arsenal as he has a broken leg, head or is away on holiday with his three wives. Another approach is that a £150K player will move soon , then you read the article and its his moving house and nothing what you would expect. So as a result I refuse to read that article and any other like it.

My other pet hate is that today is BRANDS name on T-shirts etc and on lots of your clothing. The brand does not pay me to advertise for them and so I never purchase any item that has got a brand name on unless I am left with no choice. A shirt with Gucci, etc to me is pointless and more expensive than needs be. Some years ago I got the garage to take of the car supplied by labels which really annoyed the garage and on one car I changed the registration plates to avoid advertising.

And as for British Airways , how bad is their service now, we recently flew down to Lanzarote on Ba and the on board staff were clearly quite new and and did not smile at the customers, some of these crew should travel on Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Qatar to see how its done. In the old days of BOAC there was a pride in the crew but that has gone AWOL it seems, which is such a shame. Its a bit like the old P & O Ferries, they were great in the 1980’s but now its perhaps the worst company on the Channel Crossing today, even Irish Ferries are better which is hard to believe.

finally, Local Council. We are now under Woking Council which is bankrupt with amateurs playing with resident money. If they were stealing the money I would understand it but in this case it is shear stupidity that they embarked on ludicrous development plans rather than spend the cash on the roads and the county which is what they are supposed to do.  Even Spelthorne BC is also in a mess for using residents money to invest in building for a greater return? they are really stupid as the best investors on the world make serious mistakes what makes a couple of wankers in a council think they can do better. Should be shot…………………

Time to leave the sun and back to the cold, but at least Chelsea won a game

We are really going to miss the sun as back home its been pretty damn cold and with some snow showers in places we understand. However at breakfast Noel took the light option and then we headed back to the room for the final piece of packing before leaving the Hotel. At 1045 we asked the guys to come and collect the luggage whilst Noel went down to pay the bill and then we waited for the transport to airport which had been organised by BA , we had expected a car and not a rattily old 8 seater bus and for the price it was disgusting.

I was aware there had been a flight delay with the aircraft leaving London and it turned out it was all due to the French Air Traffic Control, along with the rest of the French population going on strike due to intention of raising the retirement age which the workers don't want to do.. This meant that the aircraft was delayed leaving London and instead of its direct route over Normandy and down the west coast of Spain and Portugal and then on out in to the Atlantic but NO it had to fly down to Lands End in the UK and then a bit before turning South in the direction of the Canary Islands and this added about an extra hour and bit plus they left late. So Instead of the inbound flight arriving at just before 1300 and leaving at 14.00 it arrived at about 14.30 and left at approx. 16.00 with a four hour flight time.. We had spent our pre flight time in the Lounge which was a lot quieter and with the noise of several thousand people waiting for for their flights. The funny thing was though most other flights were not delayed even EasyJet to Manchester left on time???

The economy seating is rubbish with no seat movement and no food is served on board unless you pay 30 per cent extra to fly business class in the same economy seat , bloody rubbish really. For me and Jen we brought our own bread rolls so not so much of a problem but many people on board were strongly complaining to the crew how little food , if any was served on this long flight . Apparently if you do not pre-order food you can order on-board only it seems they had run out of sandwiches for people to buy and a lot of passengers were complaining to the on board staff.

We arrived back at Gatwick at around 2000 and were staggered how quick it was from the time we left our seats, thro immigration and collect suitcases was abut 25 minutes which I thought was very good. The Taxi was waiting for us and we were leaving the airport shortly 2030 and were getting home at around 21.15 and I was able to watch the last 35 minutes of the game , it was great to see the team actually playing.and they won 2.0 with an aggregate of 2-1 over Borussia Dortmund.

And so back to our normal bed. It had been a very nice holiday and shame the weather was not better in the first week but at least this was quite good for touring with the car.

Well that's the last bit of blogging for a while..

OH dear!! Tomorrow we leave for home

Well the sun was shining again this morning and we took our our normal place for the buffet breakfast as usual and then left the Hotel to purchase some food for our flight home tomorrow. As you cannot trust, or even find out, what is in the airline food Noel has to take something which he knows is safe.

So we purchased some buns and decided that we would have cheese buns on the flight and also some tomatoes , plus for dinner that evening, and that was all we needed and so we headed back to the Hotel to spend some time sitting in the sun and shade on our balcony which as previously mentioned overlooks the beach. The day slipped by and then in late afternoon it was time to start packing up our suitcases so that we could leave as required the following morning. For dinner we had decided that stay at home was the best way to ensure Noel had no challenges and so we had a prawn salad with a nice baguette with only water. Actually we have been most careful about booze having only bought one bottle of very, very cheap chardonnay which tasted like paint stripper and mostly Noel drank beer with Jen having the odd glass of red or white.

We watched a little of TV and then headed of to bed with Noel checking that he really had turned up the central heating and also turned on the hot water to ensure the house was warm when we got home tomorrow. It was unfortunate whilst we were away there was a power cut in all of West Byfleet which I established several days later upset the timing on the boiler causing the hot water to turn on about 90 minutes later than planned.

And so to bed 

Sporting Sunday

Well the amazing thing is that Chelsea actually beat one of the lowest team in the Premier league Leeds 1-0 at Stamford bridge and its the first game they have won for about three months it seems, its a start but still very poor and how the the hell they hope to stand up to Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday, god only knows, we shall see. I am hoping to watch this game at home provisioning the flight is on time and not delayed due to the promised adverse weather conditions which are promised over the next few days.

Prior to leaving West Byfleet we turned down the central heating and the hot water to off,as there is no reason to waste money on gas and electric, so also we had tuned off lots of plugs . However today is switch on day as the house temp is around 11C which is a bit nippy and underfloor central heating takes longer to warm up compared to conventional radiators and so lets hope the house is nice and warm when we return Tuesday evening. The weather here in Puerto del carmen is really nice and perhaps next time, we shall come a little later in the year as the first week was no great, although a lot warmer than Uk it wa to cold for sitting in a wet swim suit.

So today we watched the Bahrain F1 GP and what a good race it was and we were delighted with the success of Alonso and the Aston Martin team which shocked both Red Bull and particularly Mercedes who were well off the pace ( one second per lap)so back to the drawing board it seems and Toto was not a happy teddy by all accounts. Williams also did well but it was a disaster for McLaren but neither car were in contention.After the race we switched over to watch the Liverpool vs Manchester United game which at half time was 1-0  , I did not plan to watch the game as thought being on the balcony of the room would be nice and then I checked the score again and saw it was 3-0, this I have got to see and who would have thought that  Man U would collapse so spectacularly and they lost the game at 7-0. The Man U players lost all control of themselves and off the game and Liverpool deserved to win..

We had thought of going to the Steak House which we visited earlier in our stay and then discovered it was closed on Sundays and so Plan B was introduced that we would test our the buffet  in the Hotel providing there was sufficient food that my body would accept and I was able to get a reasonable meal whilst Jennifer could enjoy most of it. We returned to the room  about 9pm and watched some stuff on You Tube, amazing what you can see on here.

As and aside I have been tracking the two B747-8 Cargo Aircraft which my ex Company has long term charter contracts from Atlas Air who will take care of the aircraft and provide the crew whilst KN will control the loading and routing , quite interesting really to see where they are going and just wish I could take a ride…Ah well time for  bed

Not quite what I expected

Well the previous evening we had been to the Irish bar across the road and had the burger which was very good, I did have it about a week ago with no side affects, But I am guessing they had changed the ingredients or that there was a different chef as within and hour so after getting back the hotel, my problems started and continued overnight and in to the next day, so any plans for today were put on hold.

We had planned that we would have a nice day overlooking the sea, then watching the F1 Qualifying and then a swim and then off to the steak house for a nice Saturday night dinner but of course now that's not going to happen. I cannot, as always, be 100% sure what caused the problem and can only assume there were some onions in the ingredients or that it had been cooked near onions, who knows?.

So we had a quiet day pretty much with Jennifer still deep in to her book and Noel in to his music.We decided therefore to go for a salad in the Hotel bar which was very good, not cheap, but really tasty  but ensured no garlic or onions to touch the Chicken Caesar salad and then we retuned to the room as sitting outside it was beginning to cool and there was some equipment being set up for live music and so at about 7.30 we headed back to the room and watched some stuff on You Tube.

It has been interesting catching up with the two political uproars, One the Governments Covid response and Max Hancock's book where the joint writer decided she had enough of the lies and gave copies of all the what's app messages to the Telegraph newspaper and there has been an uproar, one about the facts being released and the other about how dare she sign a Non Disclosure Agreement and a few days later change her mind and give the info to the press. Hancock was stupid to employ her as she done this thing before but frankly I think she was right to do so.

The other political furore is the investigation in to Boris to see if he broke any regulations during lockdown and the lady doing this was an ardent fan of the Labour movement and immediately she had finished this long pointless investigation jumped ship from the Civil Service to join the Labour Party. To be frank the majority of people who work in Number 10 and 11 Downing street are all long term Civil servants and memories of Yes Minister and/or Yes Prime Minister would easily recognise this as what happens with the civil service, all most lazy bastards with still many of them working from home?????. Now as this has erupted the people reviewing this rather pointless document and the fact that Boris was accused of lying to Westminster has suddenly been brought forward to next week so as not allow the investigation in to the mater  to take place whether this silly lady was playing silly buggers by knowing she would be working for the so called  Labour party ( Labour party I joke as most of the unions that support this party are on on strike). Anyway I guess that the Civil Service will protect themselves and get the politicians in trouble, we shall see .

Snow and Ice are forecast next week in Uk, damn…

However on a brighter note we watched qualifying and we were pleased to see Aston Martin putting up a good fight and beating the Mercedes team and giving Red Bull a run for their money so really looking forward to the actual race on Sunday.

Same old, Same old

The usual breakfast just before they closed it down at 1030 and then we sat and decided what to do. Jennifer had planned to repat the previous days walk but then decided she ached to much from this perhaps give it a miss.

So we decided to hit the room balcony which is a great size and lovely view of the beach and sea rather than sit on an sunbed which we both find after an hour or so most uncomfortable whilst in the room we have access to very comfortable chairs on the balcony, the ease of making a cuppa and most importantly not to far to go to the loo. So Jennifer is reading a detective book by Lynda La Plant which she is enjoying and so Noel caught up with emails, blogging and then listening to some music having  sorted out a new music app which will play via the Android Auto on the car. On our regular journey down to Waterrow we like to listen to music but when using the Amazon Music which relies on data via the car or mobile and in the hills and dips you lose it for a minute or to but this app will play anyone of my 7500 songs which I had converted from CD’s in our collection.

We like to have quite a healthy breakfast as it enables us to get through the day until about 1700 when we start to get peckish and looking for dinner. We were originally going to the café in the hotel but then changed our minds, which is our privilege, and headed across the road to sit in the sun in the Irish bar where we had dinner.

In the evening we watched a film about a young man who worked hard and became a famous surgeon and it was a good film and worth watching and then we were able to watch the latest episode of ‘ The Plank of the Week’ on Talk TV which is always good for a laugh and no WOKE stuff.

And so to bed

What day is it today

Well actually its Thursday however the day started in the usual way with breakfast and Jennifer decided that she would like to go for long walk along the beach and as Noel had overdone the walking on the previous day and was limping quite a bit he decided it was better to stay around the Hotel. Its quite easy when you are staying in the same place for a few days that its easy to forget which day of the week it is, ah well thats life.

So Jennifer went for a long walk down the beach and surfaced near the far end of Puerto del Carmen and then walked all the way back to the Hotel slightly exhausted by her efforts, she said I will do this again tomorrow, lets see. In the meantime Noel got the Blog up to date and did a few emails and then out of the blue we received  a what's app message recorded by my sister Annette who is currently in a care home in Dartmouth and so we recorded one for her. Its my Brother in Laws 80th Birthday this coming Saturday and their three girls will be visiting Dad and Mum is being taken by a care worker to join a small birthday party locally.

In the afternoon Noel tried to make a new music app work on his phone but without success but the the support withing one hour in response to my email was very good and so now it works. This will (should) allow me to play all my old CDs that I recorded some while ago in my car using the Android Auto software. We also spent some time just enjoying the sun and breeze and overlooking the beach and sea with Jennifer reading noel enjoying music.

We decided to go back to the Irish Bar for the no nonsense food with Jennifer having a hot cheese salad and Noel the Fish and Chips as he thought it was Friday, hence the opening paragraph on the subject. From there TV’s we learnt of the defection of Sue Gray who now looks to have stitched up Boris with an investigation that was biased from the very start , should be interesting over the next few weeks to see if the labour Government were behind this and if there could be warfare in Westminster.

Anyway after dinner we headed back to the room as Real Madrid were playing Barcelona and this promised to be a good match, the first channel we found was unable to show the actual game only the crowds and and managers, how stupid is this, and so I thought well that's it and then started flicking thro the channels and lo and behold I found the game live with a Spanish very excitable commentator who could not stop talking..Anyway the game was a bit rough as expected when these two teams play each other with Real Madrid having larger part of the possession but with Barcelona winning by one goal largely due bad luck on on RM goalie who saved the ball which then bounced back of an RM player in to the net. This is only the first leg and so will be interesting to follow the next leg providing its on UK TV.

And then to bed…

Weather is improving

The usual breakfast and sat and discussed the days planned events, if any, and any recent news of interest. But after breakfast we decided that sitting by a swimming pool with the temp a couple of degrees below comfort level was not the best way to chill out and so we went for a long walk along to the little port area where the scuba divers were either getting dressed or undressed for their training period. This appears to be a major location for scuba diving training as the car park was full of ‘white van man’ with the names of different diving training companies.

Regretfully the writer has had a few issues in the lower part of the body over the last few days and was actually feeling a bit better this morning but then we stopped for a break at a little café decided to have a beer without checking the brand and so a large mug of AMSTEL arrived which in the bottle form had never caused me issues although once before with the draft version I had forgotten contains sucrose???so a couple of hours later I spent quite some time in the smallest room in the house, as they say.

Prior to all of this we passed by several cafe’s and restaurants and considered venturing there for a lunch or dinner but the risks of contamination of garlic or onions is rather high and so after a long consideration we would stick with the devil we know which is the Irish pub across the road which serves good homemade food and also the Hotel.

This little area of Puerto del Carmen was much busier than when we were here last in October 2021 which was not long after Noel had a new knee and was somewhat restricted on walking but now unfortunately the right knee is beginning to play up more as the left one is so good that it means I want to do more walking on one good leg and one that clicks at every step, umm will have to consider having the other one done.

Anyway spent the afternoon on the room balcony overlooking the people on the beach, again not very busy, and then at around 7pm went for dinner, yes across the road and Jen had the spaghetti bolognaise  and Noel the burger minus onions..Once we returned the room after buying some water for the room it was bit late for a film and so we watched all sorts of exciting things on You Tube, from the opening of the new London Bank Station to a guy travelling by bus from London to Edinburgh for £ 23.00, all good fun.

And so to bed.

A quiet day in the office

After the usual breakfast in the very well organised and plentiful buffet we went down in the garden and found a nice seat where we could lie back and enjoy a rest and could look over the sea with a few nice plants in the foreground.

We spent a good three hours listening to music and watching the world go by until about 13.30 pangs of hunger crept in and so we adjourned to the room for some cheese and biscuits and even more restful afternoon. After an hour or so Jennifer visited the supermarket and purchased some basics like milk, smoked salmon and some bread which we would use for a salad later in the evening. We then continued our relaxation as after three days touring in a car where we could not get really comfortable and Noel had a backache, as usual when renting a car.

In the evening we watched the last episode of ‘Drive to Survive’ which wrapped up series 5 and this is well produced and you do see a lot of stuff and interactions amongst the Team Managers and drivers which you don't get on the SKY TVF1 broadcast. After this we started watching a Japanese film which looked quite interesting but it was very slow so we gave up and watched some stuff on you tube .

Tomorrow the weather also looks good around midday but in the afternoon although its not cold there is not to much sun and blue sky.

That's it for today

Lets do it again

Yesterdays travel around the North part of the Island was thwart with challenges, loads of cars and thousands of cyclist all wish to die, it seems so it was not pleasant driving and we could not stop and take photos either and so today we thought we would repeat some, of not all, of the journey to try and get some good photos and enjoy the views. So following the usual breakfast we packed up and collected the car from the underground car park and headed North on the South side of the Island passing through the outskirts of Arrecife and up past Arrietta and finally arriving in Orzola which we did a better tour of. You can get a ferry to La Graciosa  which is a small Island about 30 minutes away by boat with white sands and lovely clear water and apparently really worth a visit but unfortunately we did not have time fo this.

From here we took the road in the direction of Haria which was very quiet, almost deserted one might say and from there on the the historic capital of Lanzarote called Teguise which was also very quiet but the roads were most interesting with steep gradients where yesterdays cyclist were struggling and moving all over the place whereas there were only a few so we could stop when we wanted to take some photos of the particularly the stone walls made from volcanic rock which were built to protect plants and later on the journey the vines as there were a number of Bodegas you could visit which was not much use to Noel with his diet issues. From there we went on to Mozago also a quite place and toured around the small town looking for somewhere to get a cup of coffee but maybe because it was a Monday nothing was open although we did one full blown restaurant with a number of people there but I doubt that they would be happy just serving us coffee when they need the customers for the main restaurant.

By this time it was about 14.30 and so we slowly took the long way back to the Hotel to drop off the car but found the office not opening until 1600 so we parked again in the Hotel car park and then 90 minutes later returned the car and immediately afterwards visited the Irish bar for a pint. Next door to the pub was a shop selling all the usual tourist stuff but they had some nice leather sandals which Noel took a liking to and subsequently purchased as the current ones wont deal with his swollen left ankle which was result of his knee operation 18 months ago. We returned to the Hotel and checked out the swimming pool on the roof which is reserved for suite guests and it was quiet and so tomorrow morning after breakfast we shall  check it out.

Having had an enjoyable salad last night in the room we decided to do the same again tonight and this time its smoked salmon and prawn salad and then we plan to watch a couple more episodes of the Netflix Drive to Survive again. So that's it for today

Not quite what we expected

The usual breakfast and we collected the car from the garage and headed North with a plan to visit the historic town of Tegusia but en route our road was blocked by a police car as it appears there may have been a parade in one of the small towns were were passing through, we cold not tell whether it was part of the Carnival or even a funeral. We changed our route and this time on the road we discovered that this little Seat car has android auto  and so we could use the main screen to display the route rather that Jennifer holding the mobile in her hand .

As we arrived on the outskirts of Tegusia there were ars everywhere and lots of impromptu car parks and there was a large Sunday Market underway and again our intended route was stopped and we are not great with markets we took a right turn and followed to see where it led but clearly after a while it became clear we were heading North again until we reached Orzola the most northern city where you catch a ferry to a small offshore Island nearby but the locals were charging for public car parks , crooks so we carried on.

The road from Orzola took us over the hills with winding roads and with bloody cyclists everywhere in two’s and three’s across the road and one person on a bike indicated right for a road 20 yards ahead than unexpectedly pulled out in the the centre of the road to turn , quite dangerous really.

The road was quite interesting with houses made of the black volcanic rock and many little walls to protect trees which must have taken ages to build but perhaps by people long dead and forgotten but an interesting drive. We realised that perhaps Sunday was not the best day of the week to do our sightseeing and so we headed back to Puerto Del Carmen and found the LIDL store where stocked up with food for the evening. We really dont like eating out every night, apart from the expense you perhaps end up eating to much and so with the car loaded with baguette, smoked salmon, cheese and many other goodies we headed back to the Hotel which we reached at about 2.pm , 3 hours sitting in the car with a seat that does not move is enough.

With Noels laptop having a VPN connection we connected to our Virgin Connection and Noel was able to see the end of the Tottenham vs Chelsea game when again these expensive superstars lost, we need to have a change of management as its not working at the moment. Later in the evening we spoke to our son and family whilst Noel was watching the EPL Cup with Manchester United beating Newcastle, shame Newcastle could not win but Man U too good for them.

So in the evening we had our dinner in the room and followed up with TV before retiring to bed

We collect the rental car

Following the usual breakfast we packed our stuff, cameras, water bottles and maps and waited in the reception for the car to be delivered to the hotel as promised. By 11.15 no car had arrived and the phone number provided was not being answered, so what to do and then a guy arrived and saw me clutching the rentals docs and hurried over and said he had been waiting outside for us, but actually in the car rental place immediately across from our Hotel but with a different company name. Anyway it did not take long and we had the car and decided to Head to the South part of the Island and spend a few hours touring .  The car was Ok but one where you cannot adjust the angle of the back rest and so after a few hours along came the back ache.

We headed down south to Playa Blanca which is pretty much at the bottom of the island and drove around the town a little bit then headed North in the direct of the Volcan Mountains or Parc Nacional al Timanfaya where the Volcanic area is based and it was quite busy en route with so many cyclist , most of them careless in their riding habit whilst a few people had the bikes where you lay on your back with the pedals in front of , see photo, and they are so low to the ground and with black or dark cycle gear virtually impossible to see. Why these cyclist insist on wearing dark clothes when the background is black volcanic rock beats me unless they really want to die?

When we go to the national park it was quite busy with a queue and of course its not an easy walk and what with Noels knees etc we decided not to attempt but just carry on. We then arrived at an area called Club Le Santa which is a very large holiday complex which looked interesting but to big for our liking. From there we cam back of the mountains? in the direction of Arrecife and made a slight error with left and right turns and so ended up in the Airport complex, not really a problem but made us a little late back.

We arrived back in the Hotel around 1500 hrs and had a rest as tonight we are going to watch the Puerto Del Carmen Carnival which is due to start in Spanish time around 1700 at the other end of town and work its way along the sea front to close to our Hotel.  But before leaving for the carnival we headed over the the Irish bar for some early food and beer, also watched some of the England Vs Wales Rugby, and then walked for about a couple of kilometres down the main road and then waited for the Carnival to start. Gosh it was much bigger and better than we excepted and we really enjoyed and Noel took at least 200 photos and loads of video which will need sorting. By 9pm it was pretty much finished but there were several hundred people involved with lovely costumes and event the audience was also dressed up to celebrate.

We fancied a quick drink on the way back to the Hotel and pooped in to the Irish bar for a Jack Daniels on ice. We then watched another couple of episodes of Drive to Survive on Netflix and then to bed, A nice and enjoyable yet tiring day.