February - Sunday 12th February - A detour on the way home!

We had to slightly adjust our plans for today - despite having tickets for the tennis.

I had to start my final phase of tuition on Monday and as a result we decided that we should head home on Sunday morning (and sacrifice the day of tennis) to make sure I got home in time and wasn't too tired.

Additionally, a friend had just moved to Sheffield from Florida - some of you might remember Seabreeze - and we decided to pop in on the way home to say hello :)

So, we left Braehead at 7am (after a poor night as some idiots in the travelodge had been running up and down the hallway in the middle of the night) and headed off on our long journey!

Thanks to the early start we made good progress and had crossed the border by 8.30!

We had expected the SatNav to take us down the M1 but for some reason it decided to take us down the M6 and then across - using a route called the 'snake pass'!

Now you will remember that there had been some snow over the weekend - this is the view from the car:

This section slowed us down a little but we were still on target to arrive at our destination about 11.30.

We arrived and took Seabreeze to a pub near her place and she had her first carvery (although meat free as she doesn't eat meat). I had the honour of trying to explain Yorkshire puddings to her!

We had a nice meal and then took her to Meadowhall - a large shopping centre nearby - so that she could see a little more of the city :)

We found this character in a shop - which was amusing for Seabreeze:

We spent a few hours in Sheffield and then dropped Seabreeze back home before heading towards home.

I had been monitoring the tennis on my phone and by this point James had been beaten by Lacko and so I was desperate for Dan to get the win for the team.

I must admit that I had been a little disappointed by James' performances over this weekend :(

Whilst we were driving out of Sheffield we saw this odd building:

The photos are not great - taken on my phone...but the building doesn't seem to be straight :-/

The rest of our journey went relatively smoothly...I was preparing a job application on my laptop which must have looked odd to drivers of passing vehicles!

I was also monitoring the tennis - and was thrilled when Dan took a 2-0 lead in the match. As we all know his opponent pulled the score back to 2-2 but Dan did eventually come through and get the win!

An amazing victory from Dan and a real shame that I missed it but I had a fun day and got to meet up with a friend so a good compromise :)

See you next time on the blog - whenever that is :)

Rest of photos here

February - Saturday 11th February

So, we got to see Ross and Colin in the doubles today.

But first, we got a demonstration of wheelchair doubles - in the form of an England vs Scotland battle :)

They played tie break scoring but without the change of ends and it was really entertaining :)

I am also amazed at how these guys manage to move around the court and still get the ball back....!

By the way, thankfully this time we were not forced to listen to some terrible 'entertainment' before each match....hope this trend continues :)

So, onto the main event - Ross and Colin.

The boys started off well enough and got an early break in the first. The took the set 6-3 and we were all pretty pleased.

The second was much closer but the boys took it on a tie-break! Yay!

Spirits were generally high in the group - Dave decided to take this as a hint to keep hitting people (mostly Rob and I) with the clappers supplied by BNP Paribas. Cue another photo of Dave and Fiona:

The third set did not start well however, the boys were broken straight away :(

We all hoped for a quick response but unfortunately it just went from bad to worse - another break and soon the set was gone 0-6!

So, we were all hoping they could get back on track in the fourth and thankfully they did!

The boys got their act back together and managed to get the break in the fourth and soon enough we were looking at match point!

The guys were so happy - they both said how amazing the support was from the crowd and how it had helped them get past the difficult third set :)

So, the day of tennis over we headed out again. Xscape was really busy and in the end we headed to pizza hut for dinner.