I need a holiday, part two

This afternoon I've REALLY felt like I need a holiday, due to a particularly nasty journey home from work. I was driving down towards the M25 when I saw a police car pulled across the width of my sliproad. I had no option but to take the other sliproad which led south rather than north, taking me in the complete wrong direction to get home. I got off the motorway at the first exit, but this led me onto some roads that I'd never driven on before and I had absolutely no idea where I was.

I know some people take to this kind of situation well, but it only served to really piss me off. On top of that, I was seriously low on petrol and was starting to think of horrible worst case scenarios in my head, seeing myself breaking down in the middle of a duel carriageway with no hard shoulder etc etc. Eventually I found my way back and treated the car to some nice Premium Unleaded petrol to reward it for not dying on me.

Cue the onslaught of 'I need a holiday' thoughts, and this takes me back nicely to my series of holiday memories.

Holiday memory two: McDermott loses all his shoes
Destination: Las Americas, Tenerife
Year: 2006

You might have noticed a recurring theme running through my two holiday memory posts so far; that of lost footwear. I'm not absolutely why, but there's something that greatly amuses me when people lose shoes.

We came back from a particularly heavy night out, and holiday debutant Dave McDermott was the last one in. The last we'd seen of him he was absolutely battered, and by the time he got back we were all in bed. During the night I kind of remember him coming into my room and fumbling around in our safe, which lay near the foot of my bed. Then I must have fallen back asleep.

In the morning he told us that he'd got a cab back from the bars but when it arrived at the hotel, he realised he didn't have any money on him to pay the driver. So he left his brand new trainers in the cab as a deposit (he'd bought these trainers especially for the holiday). Then he came back to our apartment and tried to get some of his money out of the safe, but couldn't access it (too pissed to remember the code to the lock). So in his drunken state he picked up his other pair of trainers and brought them back to the cabby as payment, forgetting that he'd already left his other pair in there. I think at that point the driver must have had enough and just drove off, with all of Dave's shoes in his car.

That day Dave had to go out and buy some flip-flops, and for the rest of the holiday they were his only set of footwear and they completely tore his feet to ribbons, ahahaha!

Oh boy, bring on Tenerife 2008.

-J

So bored

I just got in from work about 45 minutes ago and already I'm excruciatingly bored. It's Saturday night and I have no one to play with. And the weather is shit, what is wrong with this place? It's so dark and it's only seven o'clock, and outside it's pouring with rain and has been all afternoon. This is the height of summer.

Where is everyone? My sister's even working at the tennis club and still no one's around.

I'm in a very bad and irritable mood

I need a holiday, part one

Above (left to right): Me, Daz, Chopper and Gareth shortly after Chopper's return

I've only realised these last few days that it's not too long until my holiday with the boys. We've had it booked for a while now, and it's always seemed like it is miles away until we actually go. Now it's less than a month to go, and I'm really looking forward to it. Having been working for a few months it's also the first time I probably 'deserve' a holiday, so my eager anticipation is being fuelled even more.

This has prompted me to write a post looking back on holidays gone-by, and this theme will probably turn into a series of posts. Each one will look back on one specific incident and I'll recount it as best I can. I was trying to think of my number one holiday memory of all time, but it's just too hard. There are too many to pick from. Anyway, here goes. This one just came into my head first, for no reason in particular.

Holiday Memory One: Chopper goes missing
Destination: 'The Pit', Gran Canaria
Year: 2007

We were all enjoying ourselves the hub of Gran Canaria's drinking district, which we coined 'the Pit'. Literally a hole in the ground filled with bars, this was probably our favourite haunt whilst we were there. We'd been to a few bars before arriving at the Pit, and had just tucked into a stash of about 24 Buds that we'd ordered from 100% Orange. We suddenly realised that Chopper wasn't with us. I think most of us just assumed he'd gone to the bog or something, and then forgot about it. A while later though Alex then went to look for him, and soon returned with the man in question. He found him in a nearby car park, without his shirt or shoes. Alex luckily found the shirt, but not the footwear. The two of them returned to the Pit, and Chopper was completely spaced out as if he'd just landed on earth. It was a classic scene, Chops stood half naked in the middle of the Pit, simply shaking his head. We asked him where he'd been and what had happened, but a shake of the head was all we ever got. The next day, we found him asleep in bed with his feet completely black from all the dirt he must have stood in without his shoes. To this very day, dear Chops still can't remember what happened. We suggested that he could well have been violated, but the truth will forever be in question!

Barry to stay

I've just been browsing through all the different football markets there are at the moment, and I've ended up laying Gareth Barry to leave Aston Villa at 1.2.

There have been various transfer sagas this summer, and none of them have (yet) come to anything more than gossip. Ronaldo traded as low as 1.14 to leave Manchester United, but nothing has happened (he's now 1.64 to stay). Lampard traded at 1.4 to leave Chelsea, and now he is 1.04 to stay. Berbatov traded at 1.09 to leave Spurs, and 1.82 to stay. The moral of the story is that these transfer markets are completely all over the place. Nobody knows what's going on, so you'd have to be crazy to back any of these short odds.

So, Gareth Barry, please still be registered as an Aston Villa player at 1pm on 3rd September so I can win this bet!

-J

Another Olympic punt

KickingBets is throwing up a lot of bets at the moment, but I keep missing the good prices. I've followed Chris on his Paula Radcliffe selection for Sports Personality of the year. So she'll need to win the Olympic marathon, which basically makes this an Olympic punt.

Today the weather is grim. This is how we pay for having a spell of sunny weather.

I'm tempted to introduce some new features to this blog, such as some photos to jazz it up or even a 'vlog' (video blog)... we'll see how bored I get.

7.5 hours left until drinks and darts at the club

-J

Career high at darts

So my prediction the other night was slightly off, and I managed to beat Gareth 8-1. I had a practice match with Covey yesterday afternoon too, and managed to win that 9-0. This is definitely the best I've ever played at darts. I seem to be hitting the doubles within two to four goes every time, and after I've warmed up my scoring is getting good too. I managed to get down to 261 after four darts against Covey yesterday, which was incredible for me! Normally I find myself behind in legs as my scoring is pretty mediocre, and it's my doubles that save me at the end. Hopefully I'm improving a bit on that front.

Anyhow. There hasn't been much action on this blog lately because I've been living a very boring existence. Work, work, work, getting up at 3.30am and being tired the rest of the day. Yesterday I got out of the bath and had to have a sleep on the bathroom floor because I was too tired to move any more. I have two days off now before I'm doing another seven on. Stupid thing is, I'm already bored and I've only been up a couple of hours. Just counting down the seconds until tonight when I'll be going to the club for some drinks and another Premier League match, this time against Chris.

Tomorrow I'm the MC for a big night of darts, which is shaped up to be a big one.

My God, this post is simply awful. Well done if you've made it this far - future posts can only get better than this one!

-J

Darts tonight

I have a Premier League game against Gareth tonight. I have a horrible feeling I'm in for a whooping. Even Chris managed to get two legs against me yesterday.

Update to follow.