Friday 5th March - getting ready

Assuming we can get Sally's ear un-glued from her phone, and her fingers pried away from her keyboard, the plan is to head up to Derby late this afternoon/early evening, where we will stop overnight with Ron & Beryl (Sally's parents for those of you who didn't know)

It's Beryl's birthday tomorrow (6th March), so we will get to spend a few hours with them before heading up't'north to the apartment.

So far this morning, i have done the remnants of the ironing, and set the videos for the next weeks programs. I have also watched the Iron Maiden documentary that was shown on BBC4 last night about their world tour in their own plane piloted by their singer Bruce Dickinson. It was very interesting, and they all seem like really nice guys - down to earth, not the usual rock stars at all.

I have just checked the weather forecast on metcheck.com, and it looks fairly promising for where we are going - mostly dry, fair bit of sunshine, just VERY cold - some days they are forecasting -4 during the DAY, but with the windchill, it will feel like -9!!!!! Where's my wooly hat?

Cold we can cope with - we are taking enough clothes to layer up as necessary. It will be more of a let down if it rains a lot and is dull and cloudy. You can keep warm - keeping dry is less easy.....

Hopefully, if the forecast proves correct, i should be able to get some decent photos. I'm only taking the Panasonic digital compact and the 35mm film Leica with me - decided to leave the digital SLR behind - something had to give, and the Panasonic is a pretty good little camera, so i'm not worried about being SLRless. Hopefully, the Leica will get some use - have got plenty of film in my bag, both colour and back & white. It's about time the poor thing saw some proper use!!

I had been considering taking a ham radio transceiver up with me, but feel it is probably a waste of time. We are not going away for long, and the chances of getting much time to set it up and use it are pretty remote. Maybe when we go away in the summer for 2 weeks.......

While we are away we will miss several Blaze games, and you know what? I don't really care that much. Yes, i have somewhat fallen out of love with the game and the club this season. The lack of consitancy has been a major reason, but it also helps that i have finally come to realise that it is really is "only a game". We have missed more home games this season than in the previous 4 years put together.

It is almost a relief to have our Sunday evenings back, and i actually quite enjoy sitting in a comfortable (and clean!) seat at home with the laptop giving updates from the games thanks to the excellent "Fire & Ice" Match Night Live coverage. It's strange how not only am i more comfortable and warm "watching" the games at home, but the catering facilities are MUCH better and the toilet facilities are so much more "inviting" than those at the Skydome!!! Perhaps we should sell tickets to our own "venue" next season........