Some Horsing Around

Tuesday being much drier than Monday, and riding was far nicer. Stopped off at the boxing gym on the way home for another session, and it really is starting to come back as the rust starts to fall away - I just need the fitness to come back!!

With Wednesday off and Spurs looking good in the League Cup semi-finals, it was off to Burnley for the second leg of the semi-final. 45 of us on the coach for the trip up, and funnily enough, you could tell exactly when the beers took effect later in the afternoon. Tommy joined myself, Petter, Paul and Paul on this one, and we did have a fun time on the bus trip up - all 5hours of it.
The game itself, was a bit of a nightmare. The night was COLD and a drizzly mist was on the wind. Thankfully our stand wasn’t too affected by this, but as you can see, the seats in Burnley could do with some upgrading! (not that we used them).
Burnley going 3-0 up by full time didn’t really help, because that made it 4-4 on aggregate and we weren't looking good. Extra time meant more game for our money. Spurs scoring twice in the last two minutes of extra time meant that it’s their second League Cup final since I’ve been here. Now the fun starts in obtaining a ticket!
We got back home at 4am.

Thankfully I had the next day off, so I had a chance to go take the bike for a service and then have a bit of an exploration around the area by Brick Lane. Finding a great music store as well as some good looking cafés, a book store and also the vespa shop was a nice bonus.
Off to waterloo and south bank from here, saw me lunching with Lise and having a good catch up on the last few weeks.
Back to Brick Lane Bikes to collect the bike and a cruisey ride home...

Speaking of riding, I headed home early from the work crew at the pub so that I could be up early for one. I ended up finding a new way to get to Hatfield, and this time via Essendon, which is a very small but picturesque village. It was COLD again, being 2C, and this did make for a funny surprise at one point. I stopped to take the pic you can see here, and as I did, my glasses fogged up. I could still make out the screen on my camera, so continued to take a couple of pics. What I couldn’t see was the couple of horses that came over to fill up the lens by standing almost right in front of me. I’ll have to take some apples with me next time! (you can see one of them sneaking up on me here.
Anyway, on the way home I stopped off to make a quick phone call to congratulate Gene n Bec on their wedding, which was pumping along at the reception when I rang. It took a bit to get moving again after that as I had been out on the bike for just under an hour and a half with about an hour to go to get home. I did make it home after over 65kms...
The rest of the day was fairly relaxed with a trip round to Husky n Kels to join some folks and watch the Spurs - Man U FA Cup 4th round. A fun afternoon and night, which included a very funny game of monopoly!

Monday and Australia Day. Heading from work to the Porterhouse (pub/hotel), which actually serves both Coopers Pale Ale and Sparkling Ale. I can’t recall who came up with the idea, but we ended up having a drink for each Australian state;
SA - Coopers
Vic - Crown lager
Tas - Boags
NSW - Tooheys new
Qld - Bundaberg rum (shot)
WA - Margret river shiraz
A good fun night with Row n Mark, Marty n Karen, Troy n Suki, Vicki and a few others. We were also joined by Zara n Jarrett (pictured) Hadrian, and their friend Dave, and it was great to see them again as who knows when I’ll see my cousin Hadrian again as this was his last night in London. (Hopefully a little sooner than another 20+ years!)

Tuesday night, and it was Tommy’s last night before heading home to Australia. Back to White Hart Lane for the league match against Stoke. Both teams in the bottom three and needing to win to avoid possible relegation. 3-1 to Spurs who are strangely now in 12th on the league ladder. A fun night in the pub afterwards until the pub closed. (me, Richie n Tommy).