Well folks I'm back, and I have loads to report about the last week or so. I think the last time I wrote about 'what I did on my holidays', I was at infant school, twenty-odd years ago.
Before I get onto the holiday proper, I'll just mention the Saturday afternoon before. Coventry drew 2-2 with Norwich. An acceptable result, if we hadn't been 2-0 up with great goals from McSheff and Dele. The best part of the afternoon, though, was that we found a new (to us) pub. A few minutes walk from the Ricoh, and with decent beer, batches, and best of all a free carpark for patrons.
I went straight home after the match, because I had to pack that evening, and be up at 4am the next morning. Cab picked me up at about 4.30, and we got to the airport at about 5am for a flight at six. As you can imagine, at that time the place was pretty deserted, so there was no queueing, so we just walked straight through everything.
And then I was on my first ever flight! Takeoff (or rather the rapid climb just after) felt a bit wibbly, but apart from that it was fine. I just sat and read until it got light, then looked out the window for a bit (it's weird having clouds below you!). Then I went back to reading, pausing every-so-often to see if there was anything different to see.
Landing in Spain, I had a bit of a tense moment at passport control. My mates just walked straight through, I was the last of us. The oficial took my passport, looked at it and went to hand it back. Then he changed his mind and gave it another look. He was very large and had a gun, and I don't speak Spanish, so this made me a little nervous. Of course, the more nervous I looked, the more scrutiny my passport got. Eventually, after what seemed like about a week he decided he couldn't find anything wrong with my passport and gave it back.
We collected the hire car, and made our way to our appartment. We had fun trying to figure out what the various signs meant. I correctly identified the first on as 'Caution! Side winds!', but some of the others are still a mystery.
The apartment was amazing. Marble floors (although as I found out later, in southern Spain even the car parks are marble), lounge-dining, kitchen, utility, and three bedrooms and three bathrooms, each with a shower you would have fitted a five-a-side team in!
We had lunch in an Irish bar, of all places, in Pueto Banus. The barman/waiter thought we were from New Zealand, bacause on of the guys had a Lions' tour of New Zealand shirt on.
Wow, I've waffled on! That'll have to do for now.
James.
You know, although I'm a Bristol Rovers fan, I spent a few years, when I was studying in Birmingham, working for Aston Villa security. I wasn't a Steward, I was part of the security team that looked after general stuff - not just match-day. Anyway, our match-day duties were to manage the away fans. 3 seasons I was there. We had supporters from all over Britain and Europe including Millwall, West Ham the Mancs and Merseysiders, and yet, the most horrible fans, year in and out, were Coventry. I'm sure you're a decent chap yourself, but they were absolutely vile. They use to attack women and kids at the local rail station and everything. They seemed to be permanently foaming at the mouth! Do you see much of that at home games? Everton and Liverpool had a huge group of pick-pockets who followed them. Pain in the butt, but nowhere near the animalistic, pure hatred exuded by the Coventry away following. Do you see much of that at home games? Cheers - and no offence.