NYD

Recovering from a rather mad night, I'll cut the night down, U2 tribute band doing \dakota, lots of beers, met a lad from Llani, home, something like that anyway! Currently in the cooler, JG has ventured out to get food, i'll join him soon. Hard life out here, the barstaff from NYE are all off on the beer down the coast, Stu? you listening?

Sydney....

Big City, time for Goughy's colourful clothing.....
Few beers last night, struggling today..... but saying that a beer with breakfast was managed...... staying on Pitt street, not the younger, or the youngest, but Pitt street....(Blackadder fans anywhere???)
Time for a snooze before NYE party down on the circular Quay.... Nos Da....

Sydney....

Hiya!, No, Hiya!
Retained the Ashes then, poor old Ricky, thinking we've seen the last of him? Great batsman, and to be fair, I'm a big fan of him. Who would you rather have? KP? or Pontin? At least Ricky knows his nationality....
Landed in Sydney last night, room is, shall we say, compact.... get what you pay for eh? The one thing I let Mr Gough choose, and it's the dog kennel we're in! Won't complain too much, it's 8.30 am, and warm, looking out the window I can see the local asian community getting on with their lives.....

Good Evening..... Very good evening....

Hi de hi....... Ho de ho......

Day late, I know, ran out of time on my wifi...(Fell asleep writing last nights blog....honest...)
Monday, day after the night before eh? Early awakening for the not so dynamic duo, 7am, the mess that is JG was snoring his little head off.....so a pillow to the swede woke him abruptly! After the usual S,S and S, a walk into the MCG....
Across the road we had a great morning coffee with Joe the Greek, then a minor 1/2 mile to brekky with the Asian community(don't knock it till you've tried it!), a further coffee with a true Melbournian (accent very Anglesey but Aussie....) (think Nasal but pretty) and on to the ground.
2 wickets early wasn't expected, but the day went well, Prior and one of the South Africans did pretty well, Mitchell gave away more runs than Monkey at Wellington and a pretty good day! Few beers on way home and good day all in all!
Day 3, Joe's, Asian brekky, then a trek around the money changers of Melbourne as JG, or the Danny De Vito of Guilsfield as he may also be known, was too tight to go with the first offer(cheaper than the one he ended up with) but JG isn't known for his patience.....
To the ground and we ended up at fine leg, not too bad eh? But on row LL..... Think, A,B,C,......AA, BB...you get it? Well LL was the disabled row!(they knew about JG's flatulence problems obviously....) , we did the end of the England inns there, then, using my obvious charm, moved into the sun at backward square leg at the other end. Sat amongst our antipodean cousins, we find humour and a lot of dislike for the Australian selection policy, ah well, sh!t happens eh????
Back in the room, with JG not snoring, blessed are the persons in charge of the pillows, time for a rest! Nos Da Pawb.
P.S.
(from the paper this morning.....) Knock Knock......, Who's there?    Me....Still......(KP and RP characatures...)

Ow do!

Well missed a couple of days, sorrry about that, flight from Heathrow on time, excellent pint of Beck's as we waited to get through to departures. Mr Gough may have been recruited over from the dark side.... (from Bud!!!) New sunglasses bought, plus probably the roughest pint of Carlsberg since the Pheasants'......
Kuala Lumpar, lovely airport with a colour coded mapping system, unfortunately, the compas points do not follow the code, and East becomes left, while South also becomes left after a walk to East.... I may be slighty dull, but i'm pretty good on directions.... Any way, Malasian bar £7 for South African cider, with slice of lemon in neck, a la Sol..... Carlesberg was also for sale, but Mr Gough was not entertaining that!
Fella in this airport while we waited for the gate to open, well, "YES< YES< I'M IN THE AIRPORT, YES, YES, I KNOW, BUT THERE ARE LOTS OF NORTHENERS AROUND......."  This carried on for 5 mins, have to say, what a prick....
Landed on time in Melbourne, taxi to hotel? from a Greek that jumped the queue just to get us in his taxi.....$54 later at hotel, dumped gear, jumped on tram and arrived City centre.....
"It's that way........" (Goughy)   Nope, it's that way....... "But they're going to MCG......" so are we, and it's this way......,  "You're always fcuking right....." ( I was.....again.....)
 MCG, brilliant, see pics on Fb, Aus all out for 98, great view, recomend it so far.....Goughy asleep at ground 5pm....
Realising we hadn't really slept since Friday, the hotel seemed a good idea, unfortunately, the pub accross the road took my eye...... 3 crowns, N. Melbourne, after holding Mr Gough, against his will, until the Subway had shut, then produced the best burgers this side the equator!
Goughy snoring happily away behind me at mo, need sleeep!  Nos Da, and merry Christmas!









 

Christmas Eve...... Early.....

Well, up and about far too early, watching BBC breakfast news and seeing more snow......great.....

20k luggage is not a problem, the 5k hand luggage is more of an issue. The case weighs in at 3.6k, which gives me 1.4 k of luggage? Major re-think on the way!

Waiting for Sainsburys to open, need bread for the bacon buttys. Sad that i need them, but been a bit of a habit when going on holiday.

Evening

Well, this is my first Blog, hope it goes OK.

Did the packing etc today, had a Chrismas Dinner with the kids, not a bad attempt for me either, to be honest!

Leaving tomorrow ,  with my brother now taking us down to Heathrow. After the shenannigans of the last week, what with the weather, roads and airports, i'd even trust him before the planes....hang on, i'm flying in a day, bugger!

After a year and a half of planning and organising the trip, it's finally here, now just hope for some luck in the Tests!