On the Road Again!

After the pretty much last minute winner last week away in Lisbon, when Kai Havertz stole in to score in added time, and a terrible gutless performance at the weekend, all attention was on Wednesday, and the Emirates Stadium. What a poor game. Neither side took the opportunities the opponents gave them. At the end of the day the day, neither team needed extra time! Thankfully, Sporting failed to force an equalising goal. The Arsenal team only seemed to wake up in the last twenty minutes, coincidentally, when Sporting had to throw everything forward to get a goal. Arsenal held on and could even have stolen this game as well in added time. Now we are to face Atletico Madrid in the Semi-Final.

Going home day. Up early and breakfast, then jobs done. During the night we had more rain and high winds. But Reggie was asleep pretty much all night without me having to walk around outside in my pants..... The plan was to be away before 10am as the TomTom and Google Maps had us looking at a journey of four hours and seven minutes and two hundred and forty eight miles. Amazingly for UK roads and the last Sunday of school Easter holidays we hardly had a hold up. Apart from a few miles at each end, the majority of the trip was on motorway!  The M54, M6, M1, M25 and the the M20. We were actually away at 9.45am and two hours later we were pulling into the Newport Pagnell Services. These are Welcome Break services and "well behaved dogs" are allowed inside the main building. So we went in and got a coffee from Starbucks. The caravan parking seemed not existent as following the signs we ended up by ...

Overnight we had rain at times, lashing down at times, and high winds. We were only up a few times with Reggie wanting to do his ablutions. But by getting up time I was still tired. I had a lie in. I had the cab booked for 2pm and with it raining on and off, I wore my raincoat. Good job.... The cab arrived on time ..We'll come back to cabs later. It took about  ten minutes to drop me off by the visiting fans entrance at the back of Lidl.  I got lunch in there before going into the ground. A small pizza about the size of my hand and a millionaire shortbread for those that are interested. The wind and rain carried on intermittently all game. The sun also made an appearance. The game was generally scrappy. Neither side could cope with the swirling wind but Shrewsbury scored the only goal with a looping header in the first half.   I had booked the return cab for 5.15pm. There were quite a few people waiting. Gradually the numbers dropped until just me and two lads. I cal...

Almost a last minute decision to come up to Shrewsbury this weekend. We had enjoyed last weekend's visit to Colchester and Suffolk.  I get to go the football and Claire has a relaxing day without me. I checked that Phil could take over the Arsenal ticket and then bought my ticket for the Oldham game at Shrewsbury. Next, I checked that the Caravan Club CL at Betley Park had room. It costs £25 a night including 10kw of electric. Booked. We set off around 10.30am. The TomTom route was via the south of London on the M25 to the M40, then M42 and M54.... We made good progress. Then with TomTom connected the traffic info showed a problem around the services at Clacket Lane, and again around the A3 junction. Time dragged on. We shouldn't have been bothered by the M25 being closed eastbound where it turns north by the junction with the A21 and M26. Except it seems we were. No logical reason for both hold...

The ticket arrived yesterday and so that worry is off the table. Amazed that the post office managed to get the envelope, posted first class, on Tuesday. As with Colchester last week, the site we are on is the nearest to the football ground but is too far to walk. I have been looking at buses but they aren't that easy to see where they go from and how close they get to the ground.   Roll on Saturday.

"Was a sunny day, not a cloud was in the sky" It's the first day this year we have had some almost summer weather. It's April 8th and the temperature was nudging 20°C. I checked the Bluetti and it was showing 86% full. So out with the folding Allpowers Solar Panel and plugged that in. The panel is rated at 100w and so to get 80w peak input seemed pretty decent. It was moving between 70w and 80w for the hour and a quarter it took to get the battery up to 100%. It's the first time the panel has been out since last summer.