Journal

Frogspawn

Mike Caine — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:00:00 +0000

The unusually cold winter had delayed the appearance of frogspawn in our pond this year, but when I checked today there were about six or seven clumps of frogspawn in the shallow end of our pond. I'd expect more to appear as it hopefully warms up a bit more.

Manchester

Mike Caine — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:31:00 +0000

We'd booked an Manchester United stadium tour for Margie so after breakfast she headed off on the bus to Old Trafford. We decided to visit the Museum of Science and Industry and after a bit of a false start we took the free bus to the stop nearest our destination and walked the short distance to the museum, which seemed to be housed in a collection of old market, factory and warehouse buildings. It was quite cold and there were patches of snow and ice on the pavements.

We spent a couple of hours looking around the wide variety of exhibitions and had lunch in their restaurant. We then walked back to the hotel to see if Margie had returned and on finding that she hadn't my wife popped out to look at yet more shops and I went on the "Wheel of Manchester" which was actually better than I'd expected. I then wandered over to an interesting looking building which turned out to be Urbis, and as far as I could tell it seemed a complete waste of time and space. Perhaps there would be more in there in the summer? There certainly wasn't much there that cold January day.

I ended the afternoon in the olde Shakespeare pub with a load of United fans, enjoying several pints of Spitfire and watching Man Utd beat Arsenal 3-1 at The Emirates. We ended the day with a meal in the hotel bar, followed by the seeming now obligatory whisky night cap.

Manchester

Mike Caine — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:12:00 +0000

I really like the full English breakfast in hotels when I'm on holiday; it usually keeps me going all day until the evening meal. I loaded my plate with bacon, sausage, egg, mushrooms, fried tomato and some sort of potato wedges only to realise that I couldn't really handle a fork in my left hand and that made cutting the sausages with just a knife a bit difficult. To my slight embarrassment my wife cut up my sausages while on the table next to us a little girl also had her sausages cut up by her mummy.

After breakfast mw wife and her friend headed off on the express bus to the Trafford Centre and I walked up to Piccadilly to take a tram out to the Lowry Centre and the Imperial War Museum. I had a quick look around the Lowry Centre but there was nothing there to interest me that day. I'd visited the Lowry exhibition on a previous visit.

I walked across the bridge, past the Batman like Peel Holdings office building and was soon at the Imperial War Museum North. This wasn't as big as I'd expected it to be until i realised there were six "silos" to explore and the The Big Picture shows of movies and photos projected on to the internal walls were quite interesting. I then took the tram back to the hotel to rest up for a while. The wind was quite bitter and my thumb was aching.

In the evening we walked up to the China Town area and had a nice meal. I washed mine down with some Chinese beer and afterwards we went back to our hotel room and drank some more whisky. We seem to consuming quite a bit of alcohol on this trip.

Isle of Man to Manchester

Mike Caine — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:23:00 +0000

We'd booked a long weekend in Manchester a while ago to take a friend of my wife away as a sort of belated 50th birthday break. As my hand was still in plaster my wife would have to drive and she wasn't too enthusiastic about the idea. We met Margie outside the sea terminal, checked in and were soon on the boat and settled in the Manannan Executive lounge.

Once we'd navigated out way through Heysham and Lancaster we were soon on the motorway heading to Manchester. We had a little trouble finding the Renaissance Hotel and it wasn't too clearly marked but we realised it was right next door to a multi storey car park we'd used on a previous visit. The two rooms we'd been allocated on the 11th floor were huge, especially for a city centre hotel.

Needless to say shopping was next on the agenda. We all had a snack in the nearby Arndale and I offered to carry some shopping back to the hotel, stopping off for a pint in the Crown and Anchor on the way, while they carried on shopping.

We had out evening meal in the hotel, followed by a few drinks back in our room before turning in for the night.

The Operation

Mike Caine — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:33:00 +0000

I had a crap night's sleep last night. I'd never had an operation before and didn't know what to expect. I could have asked my wife, but I didn't want to hear anything that would worry me more. I was back in hospital by 08:30 and when I was seen during the ward round it was confirmed that I needed an operation so try to fix the severed nerve.

I had a long day waiting in a ward side room until they came for me at 16:30. I don’t mind admitting I was shit scared but I was also keen to get on with it and get it over with. I came to at about 18:00 so I guess the operation must have lasted over an hour, a lot longer than I was expecting. I was also a bit surprised to find a plaster cast on my hand to keep my thumb immobile.

I was soon back in the side room and feeling hungry as I hadn't eaten since yesterday. I was offered some food and was quite pleased to be eating a cheese sandwich, some ice cream and two cups of coffee. My wife popped in with a bottle of Lucozade which I also drank. It was probably a bad idea to eat and drink all this so soon after the general anaesthetic...

When my wife came back to take me home at 21:00 I had a good throw up in the ward toilet. I then proceeded to vomit out of the car window most of the way home. When we arrived home I realised I'd lost my iPhone so we had to drive back to the hospital with me honking out of the window again. We eventually found my iPhone; it had fallen out of my pocket in the ward toilet when I was being sick. We drove home again with me hanging out of the window but by now I was empty and just retching.

I was very glad to get into bed tonight with the operation behind me.

Oops!

Mike Caine — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:32:00 +0000

A friend of mine has a large multi car garage, complete with a two post lift and a toilet in one corner. He was about to enclose the toilet to give the user some privacy and we decided to take some photos before it was boxed off

We took a few series of photos with him sitting on the toilet with his trousers down reading a magazine by the spotlights of the Mini we'd use on the Italian Job in 2007. Another set had him wiping the Mini's dipstick with toilet paper while he was sat on the toilet.

After we'd finished and had a cuppa I headed off home to do a few small jobs around the house. While doing one of the jobs I managed to slice my thumb with a Stanley knife. There was a lot of blood and my thumb was starting to go numb. For some reason I couldn't remember any of my friends' phone numbers so I wandered outside with a towel wrapped around my hand and I spotted my next door neighbour who then drove me to hospital.

I was seen to as soon as I arrived in A&E and they soon stopped the bleeding. I had a x-ray in case I'd cut into the bone (I hadn't) but it seemed that I'd cut through my digital nerve which is why my thumb went numb. I'd have to come back to the hospital at 08:00 the following morning for a further assessment and likely have to have an operation to repair the nerve.

Snow!

Mike Caine — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:29:00 +0000

Quite a bit of snow fell overnight at lower levels, something I'd not seen for a while. My wife set off to walk to her work and arrived there some hour and a half later. I waited at home until 10:00 and decided there was no way I could get my car out today so I also set off walking to work and felt rather chuffed with myself when I arrived at work an hour later.

Photo: Snow on Royal Avenue, Onchan

I shouldn't really have bothered as there were only three of us in and no customers were going to venture out today so we packed in at 14:30 and went home. My wife arrived home at 17:30 having set off at 16:00 and walked all the way home again.

Home to the Isle of Man

Mike Caine — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:00:00 +0000

My wife decided to give breakfast a miss as last night's meal hadn't stayed in her upset stomach for too long. After breakfast my mother and I decided we should see some of London as we were here again so we took the underground to Westminster and strolled across the bridge. It looked like they were getting ready to shut off some roads, presumably for a New Year Day parade so we thought we better return to the hotel before the roads were closed.

We finished packing, checked out and were back on the Gatwick Express again. Just as we were starting off down the runway and on our last leg home to the Isle of Man the take off was aborted and we had to return to the gate. We were all disembarked and our luggage off loaded. About an hour later we boarded a replacement plane and this time we took off and arrived home to a very cold house. Brrr. Happy New Year!

Back to London For New Year

Mike Caine — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:00:00 +0000

We were up early this morning, 04:30, and left hotel for nearby airport at 05:00. Our flight took off slightly late at 07:45 although the return flight time seemed to be less and we were soon back in London. We had to use the terminal transfer bus to switch to the other terminal to get the Gatwick Express in to Victoria station and were soon at our nearby Hesperia hotel.

Only one room was available when we checked in so my mother rested in it while we went to the Apple store in Regent St to buy some more iPhone earbuds as mine had eventually fallen apart during the return flight. We walked along Oxford St but it was absolutely heaving with New Year's Eve shoppers so we returned to the hotel for a rest after our early start. I sneaked down to the bar to read an English newspaper and enjoy a pint of beer. As everywhere was likely to be booked up for evening meals as it Was New Year's Eve we decided to eat in the hotel. Much as I expected we were back in our rooms and drifting of to sleep by 22:00 - so much for bringing in the New Year in London

A Day in the Medina

Mike Caine — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:34:00 +0000

After breakfast we walked to the Medina (old town) for a self guided tour at our own pace. We went to the El Badi Palace where we spent some time searching out the "minibar" until we realised we'd misread a sign and it was actually a "minbar" (pulpit / lectern) which dated from the 12th century. It was basically a set of wooden stairs with intricately carved panels and was around 800 years old. It was quite spectacular and unfortunately photography was not allowed.

Photo: Badi Palace, Marrrakech

After that we searched out the Jewish Quarter, which seemed much the same as the rest of the souks in the medina and then found the fixed price shops where you could browse in peace without being constantly hassled.

Our guide book suggested we eat at the nearby Nid Cigogne (stork's nest) restaurant. This overlooked the walls of the old palace were there were lots of stork's nest on top of the old walls and you literally had a birds eye view of them. Because it was mentioned in a guide book the restaurant was very busy and the two waitresses were doing their best to serve all of the guests. We managed to get a table but had to wait a while for our food. Others who arrived just after us had to wait a good while to be seated. The meal I meal was quite enjoyable. I would have liked to try more Moroccan cuisine during our trip but having a vegetarian wife with a bad stomach wasn't making that possible.

Photo: Storks on the palace walls

The toilets in the restaurant were pretty horrendous. I don't know if it's a general thing in Marrakech or if there are too many tourists with bad stomachs, but we'd got to the stage where we'd avoid public or cafe toilets unless absolutely necessary.

Back at the hotel in the evening my mother and I ate in expensive hotel restaurant and my poorly wife gave it a miss and stayed in the room. Afterwards we started packing for an early start the next morning.