Planning Day 88 - Thursday 27 December 2007

‘And one day I woke up and everything was different.’ That’s it. I’ve loved saying goodbye but now it’s time to go. I’ve had enough of leaving talk and I’m sure everyone else has as well. But it would only be right to chronicle my last week of almost normality.

This picture was day one of the drinking escapades in Café Rouge in Henley-on-Thames. A really great night and a lively atmosphere from the first second to the last. Its incredible how, when close friends don’t see each other as often as they’d like, they cram 2 days worth of catching up into 1 night! We had Café Rouge to ourselves but clever restaurant managing put ‘Jez’s lot in the corner’ and let us embarrass ourselves away from prying eyes. Thanks so much to the following for chipping in and raising the money for my rucksack. Picking that all singing, all dancing baby up every day will remind me of you all. And when it starts to dig into my back and annoy me every step of the way up the Andes it will remind me of carrying Swifty home up the hill from Eastbourne’s bars to our student halls of residence. Ashamedly, I admit to leaving him a few hundred metres from home then but I won’t leave the old sack anywhere. For anyone who cares. He was fine. I taught him a valuable lesson in self-preservation.

From left to right =
Pushy Pete/Cheeky Polly/Wisftul Robbie/Darling Nev/Reggie Bish/Ernie Els/Jezmondo/Funny Sally/Face Pulling Swifty/Delightful Janie/Photogenic Gill/Adorable Coxy

And then on to Lichfield and a huge thanks to everyone for the numerous offers of accommodation (which I hope will extend to early 2009 when I’ll be back to see you all again). But cheers for the bed Billy and Fi. It was super comfortable and I hope you had a top Christmas. I trust the treadmill is getting used regularly …!

A successful week of housing stuff explained in the post below combined with more drinking, dentisting, podiatring (she’s a golfing-babe the girl who sorts your feet out in Tudor Row!) and drinking.

A huge debt of gratitude MUSTN’T go to Waz for getting us all drunk on Coors Light. The state of my headache the day after answered, eternally, the question of ‘is this stuff light on alcohol or calories?’. Apologies to Wrighty, Clarkey and Balders for only remembering about my camera when they’d left. But as I say, I was drunk! Cheers for making the effort and heading out guys. You’re a star Wrighty. I hope Viv has the house settled and sorted out!

From left to right =
Don’t know who that is/Nellie/Waz/Billy

And just a day later we were back in the pub with the rest of the hockey guys. I’m always impressed by people who make the extra effort to come out when they have to drive, it isn’t a normal night out and it’s Christmas when the party season’s in full swing. Cheers for everything these last few years on the hockey pitch (and off it in the bar!) fellas. I’m so glad that I came back to playing hockey after a few years on the golf course! I’ve loved the friendships I’ve made and the challenge of the National League. I’m chuffed that, maybe, my last ever game for Lichfield was a First XI win! Not a bad effort at 36. And a special thanks to Growie, Donna and my new godson, Toby, for making me feel so at home in their home. I can’t wait to return the hospitality when I get a ‘proper’ house in 2009 guys! And to crazy Tatey you really should start that motivational company while I’m away mate. Although the lure of the pick up truck may keep you at Spiroll for at least the next year I guess!



From left to right (there’s a theme here!) =
?/Tatey the smelly keeper/Nellie the umpire (and out 2 nights on the bounce!)/Drew (the brilliantly moustachioed coach)/Euan (the England star of yesteryear and also traveller in 2009)/Growie (the only captain to take Lichfield into the elite, man mountain and bloody great guy)/Si (the outrageously talented new captain)

By the way – check out how Si is only just in shot! There’s another theme of passing the camera to random people to take these photos for the record books. I think it’s a better way of getting photos than doing the old ‘arm’s length’ trick. And I reckon I could chase down anyone who might try running off with it. Even rucksacked up. Nails!

And just when my liver thought it had done enough work up cropped a day drinking in Soho and Covent Garden. More of the same celebrating with the University guys and a welcome chance to see Wellsy and Ceej. Here’s the random photo again in a classic Bill Sykes pub of Swifty, Ceej, me, Joffy, Fothers and, just, Robbie (in order again!).

Top work and thanks to Gill for taking us to The French House (where Charles de Gaulle holed up during World War II) and the Dog and Duck (where Graeme Green wrote his novels and Madonna hangs out now). In fact you won’t believe it but … nah … if only! My apologies for taking us to the worst Chinese buffet restaurant in London guys. I’ve got nuclear grade, curry stained trousers already and I haven’t even left England yet!

We ran out of steam mid-evening having started at midday but saw this amazing Christmas display over our final pints of acrobats entertaining all of Covent Garden. They swung about on weighted poles about 20 feet up and dashed off to applause ringing in their ears. Gill and I collared them mind you and got a great picture. Just check out the snarly faced and the cute girl under my right arm. And yes. That is a beer bottle in my left pocket!

My only regret in all this drinking was missing Mark and my great old colleagues from the now historic Northern team of The Lawn Tennis Association. My apologies guys but it was just my luck to move the house the same day of our planned get together. Keep in touch and I’ll look forward to the 2009 bash! Oh – and Vanster – the company of you and Claire is hilarious so thanks for having me stay again. And most importantly I loved catching up with Elaine/Brian and Stu/Sarah from the Staffordshire crew what seems like ages ago already! It was a fantastic night of reflecting on a job well done in tennis and I’ll be interested to see what happens in the future!

As the hockey boys say ‘the blogs go on a bit!’ Well, a lot’s happened in a short space of time. The good news is – they can only get longer and even more interesting …!

Planning Day 88 - Thursday 27 December 2007

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my friends, family and Robbie Jackson. As I sit and type this on the days between Christmas and New Year I’m still in detox-mode from a fantastic pre-Christmas week of celebrating my big off and preparing to jump on a plane …

But … this last paragraph needs to be suffixed by one of those noises when the old vinyl records ground to a halt if a family member kicked the plug out of its socket right in the middle of Toyah’s It’s A Mystery! Neeeeeeeeeeeeeah! Is the only way I can think of to describe the noise in writing!

The delay has been caused by Lloyds TSB wanting to charge me £6 for every £100 I wanted to take out in cash machines abroad. Not to mention the commission on using the old ‘for everything else there’s Mastercard’. Yes there is a Mastercard you marketing buggers … that’s nicely packaged with commission if you use it anywhere outside a 34 mile radius of Stevenage. Now this really isn’t a big deal if you use it abroad a few times each year. But if you plan to conduct 200 plus transactions the bank charges soak up 5% of your budget and half of your contingency funds! So I’m sat in Gloucester’s Starbucks (they now have one of these and a Café Nero’s/Costa twenty paces round the corner … the old city’s looking up!) having opened a ‘bubbly for the shareholders’ Nationwide account a couple of hours ago. But it’s going to take a week or two to get me the cards so I have a while in early January to kick back and charge the batteries.

I’m annoyed at myself for not sorting this sooner because you don’t even need any money these days to open an account. But the exchange of contracts and completion date for Swallows Reach ended up being so close to Christmas that I didn’t have the money in my account and it took my eye off the long ball being pumped up from the back a la the England football team. Still – it was a top decision and gives me even more money to use having fun on the road! Selling property has to be the most annoying thing in the world. At least when you use the kind of solicitors I had. Ring/Ring. ‘Hello, Halfwit and Knobheads, how can I help?’ In the end I did a great bit of double-bluffing the lovely estate agents at Tydemans by sitting in front of them and saying the immortal words for any commission based service ‘pulling out of this sale’. I remembered the old John Jackson advice passed on to me by Robbie and went quiet letting them break the silence. It was broken by a flurry of phone calls and an exchange later that afternoon!

So the delay scuppered a superb set of flights ready to be bought on Christmas Eve. They had me whizzing round the globe and only once needing to back track or get a connecting flight to my destination. Which in 37,000 odd miles and 20 odd stops was nothing short of top work by Trailfinders. But I had to let them go and will now re-book next week when the Nationwide bank cards arrive. Not too bad I guess. Just means that the old ETD is pushed back from 3 January to, hopefully, around 10 January. Right around the proposed flight strikes. If British Airport Authorities want my opinion they should just give them that old-fashioned final salary pension scheme and get me on my way!

Just thought I’d end this post with a quick picture. Here’s what you look like when you’re living out of a rucksack and have to wash all the clothes you own. A huge thanks/pee off to Neville for catching me unawares and to Max Wall for the wardrobe ideas. I can definitely see a Nick Camen moment coming up next year …

For those too young to remember he took all his clothes off in a packed launderette and waited for his washing in only his pants … he was a male model ... unlike me!

More hi-jinks in the next post above. This is a double-posting day!

Planning Day 79 - Tuesday 18 December 2007

I repeat 'Planning Day 79'! 79 freaking days to plan a round the world trip in the days of Sir Francis Drake would have been a masterful feat of logistics that Phil 'Wrighty' Wright would have found difficult to match despite his skill in this field. In the days of the internet it smacks of carelessness and a good chance of getting lost on the way if you can't sort out the basic flights in less than 3 months!

By the way that was a coincidental tip of the hat to my big brother's latest amazing work - Uncharted: Drakes Fortune for Sony's Playstation 3. 'The overall package of an endearing story, outstanding score, great performances and fun gameplay should put this title on the top of your holiday wishlist. Say what you will about the PS3, but Uncharted isn't just a standout for Sony - it's a standout for gaming as a whole.' And as Alan Partridge said 'Not my words Lynn, the words of Top Gear magazine!' - well - IGN Online!













http://uk.ps3.ign.com

And the reason I'm still sat in Lichfield (very comfortably at Billy and Fi's so thanks very much guys) is because house buying and selling in England, while a very lucrative affair for the last decade, has been reminding me how unstable, clandestine, annoying and finally uplifting it is!

Yes - the deal is finally done - I exchanged contracts on Monday and complete the sale of my APARTMENT on Thursday. It's been a hairy few days because last Friday I'd packed up boxes, enlisted the help of super packer/mover, Matt 'thinning' Waggleson, unloaded everything, stored it neatly (of course!) in Newent's storage facility (sounds a bit 24 that huh?!), and chased solicitors and estate agents politely but bluntly to the edge of annoyance. And just when I thought that had cracked it talk, amongst the powers that be, yesterday was of leaving everything until Thursday. I can just imagine the solicitors dashing back to their desks after their Christmas lunch to rush through my sale, turkey drumstick in one hand, pen in the other ...? So more not-so-gentle persuasion yesterday and we're there.

A big sigh of relief can now be taken and recent thoughts consumed by moving, cancelling direct debits, telling British Telecom to stop their excellent broadband connection and negotiating Lichfield District Council tax refunds can all end.

And instead I can turn my attention to travelling again. Hooray! I'll post again later in the week when I've looked at it and tell you all about the leaving bash in Henley-on-Thames!

This has all taught me one thing. When I'm stuck with a problem it consumes me a bit and I get very annoyed that a solution can't be found. But the very second it's sorted out I forget all the hassle and move on. Now that's got to be a good trait and one I'm lucky Mum and Dad instilled in me. It's also refreshed my memory of another thing. That the property world talks in riddles. When they say 'we're waiting for the vendor to give instruction to his solicitor to exchange contracts' they actually mean 'Mr X needs to ask Mrs Y to call Ms Z and and say the sale's completed'. Now isn't that a lot easier?

For now - 'the time of the housing market is over, the time of travelling is about to begin ...'