Leaving On A Jet Plane !

Venice and the countdown continues..........

21 days and counting. yep, 3 weeks today. Still doesn't seem real yet.

So yeh, erm, went to Venice the other week which was nice.

We had 4 nights in a nice enough hotel (All Angelo). The best thing about about it was the location, first right off the main shopping street right behind St. Mark's Square. The weather was nice and that allowed us to leave the windows open and be woken by the bells in the nearby square every morning at 7 o'clock. We got 4 nights B&B + 1 free dinner for 410 Euros which was excellent for the location alone (it meant we had to go through the square on our way out and so there was usually few people there apart from the pidgeons and the Japanese tourists. They must have earlier alarm clocks than the local bells!). Only problem we had in the hotel was the lack of a corkscrew for our bottles of red. This resulted in a couple of red wine fountains as we had to push the corks into the bottles using a Bic biro and a towel (you know, the cream towels in the ensuite?).

Pics: https://cadmonkeyphotographic.smugmug.com/gallery/2545661#133845964

Anyways, had a lovely time, walked for bleedin miles, got lost one night and had a ferry ride back in the pitch black, met lots of Italians who don't speaka da lingo and saw lots of art. We event went to see some Jackson Pollocks (no, that's not rhyming slang although it might as well be !!!) in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. He had a room to himself and our fave was Alchemy. The best thing about this pic was the very comfortable 2 seater white leather sofa you could sit in and contemplate it. Took me a good 10 minutes to start to understand what he was trying to say on that one !

Here's the link to it so you can spare yourself if you ever go to Venice:

http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/dettagli/pollock_alchimia.html

The best bit is the "Jackson Pollocks" text accompanying the pic. Read it and weep !

So, what else have we been doing in the run up to leaving? Well, I've sold my bike for starters. To an Irish bloke called Noel. Had to ride it all the bleedin way to his house in Bolton for him too in the freezing cold. Wasn't too bad until I had to brake when I got off the motorway at the other end. Ahhh frozen fingers, can't.......feel.......brake.......lever !!!!!!!!! I tell you what though, they must be hard up there in Bolton judging by the size of some of the clothes their young ladies were wearing on the high street of town as we went home. I nearly had a chest clutcher looking at some of 'em !

This weekend just gone we went to watch my brother's return to racing at the lovely ex WWII airfield now converted into a race track that is Darley Moor near Ashbourne in Berbyshire

Pics: https://cadmonkeyphotographic.smugmug.com/gallery/2572241#135414711

Went for a meal on the way home, to one of these pubs with no kid's menu's, no tomato sauce and to be fair nice food.

I had a fillet steak, described as matured for 28 days, prime beef etc.  Trouble was, when it arrived it had no steak knife with it. We asked 2 separate serving monkeys and had to complain to the manager before we eventually got the steak knife 20 mins later. We had to wait 20 mins more to get to speak to the manageress who was younger than either of us. Needless to say, I had a nice steak for free ! Their excuse for not providing the steak knives (not only to us but to numerous other tables in the section we were in. The table behind us had waited an hour) ? The bottle washer was off ! Jeesus !

Most of the boxes ticked now, leaving do next Saturday, Egg Run motorcycle charity run the day before we leave.