Travel 2006 – Oxford, UK

Saturday, 4th March 2006 – Oxford College reunions can be dangerous! Where do I start? Good question. There wasn’t anything to suggest the weekend was going to get badly derailed, at least not to begin with. I treated myself to a gym session early on Saturday, knowing we’d be eating lunch and dinner in Oxford,…

Food 2005 – The Vine House, Paulerspury, Northamptonshire

Dinner last night was very fine indeed as we finally made a trip to the Vine House.Even though we were the only people in the restaurant… it made us feel a little guilty, because without us they could have packed up early! Anyway, we started with Kir Royales, because the lovely Julie Springett, who is…

Travel/Food 2005 – Macau

Saturday, 12th/Tuesday 22nd November 2005 – Macau We wasted a lot of the day at the airport, but it was worth checking in early to get the extra legroom seats on the plane. Virgin now sell these seats, at £50 extra each. They were, however, doing a promotion of buy one get one free, so…

Travel 2005 – Valencia, Spain

Friday, 21st October/Saturday, 22nd October 2005 – Valencia Friday got off to a bad start with torrential rain all over Southern England, and us needing to get to Gatwick Airport to fly out to Spain. The 2005 Girls’ Weekend Away was scheduled to start as soon as we got to the airport. Lynne, Steffy and…

Travel 2005 – Spa-Francorchamps, Jezus-Eik, Brussels, Belgium

April/May 2005 – Spa-Francorchamps, Jezus-Eik, Brussels Something of a wasted weekend, frankly. As soon as the 2005 calendar was announced, and it became obvious we’d be racing on a number of foreign tracks, I’d been asking anyone who’d listen why it was that we were going to Monza in July when the Italian summer weather…

Travel 2005 – Combloux, Megeve, Bettex, Rochebrune, France

Friday, 26th February – Sunday, 6th March 2005 – Combloux and Megeve We were catching a ridiculously early ferry from Dover – 5.00 or something ghastly – which meant we should be in Combloux by mid-afternoon all being well. It also meant we were staying in a hotel near Dover overnight on Friday, because I…

Travel 2004 – Macau, Day 4

Wednesday, 17th November 2004 – Macau, Day 4 The fun started today, with the CTM Sprint Race, organised to publicise the 51st Macau Grand Prix. In previous years they’ve done all sorts of things from rickshaw races, to martial arts competitions, dragon boat races and calligraphy sessions. This year the competitors had to run a…

Travel 2004 – Macau, Day 3

Tuesday, 16th November 2004 – Macau, Day 3 We were living in interesting times, it seemed. Mind you, we weren’t the only ones. We weren’t able to meet up with Glyn till getting on for midnight on Monday, because… well, because of all sorts of things really. First off most of the race team people…

Travel 2004 – Macau, Day 2

Monday, 15th November 2004 – Macau, Day 2 Last night’s dinner was very good, but the restaurant staff delivered the disturbing news that they wouldn’t be doing lunch during the Grand Prix because the local government had booked the entire place from 6am to 6pm… So where were the teams, drivers, officials and press supposed…

Travel 2004 – London, Hong Kong, Macau, Day 1

Sunday, 14th November 2004 – London, Hong Kong, Macau, Day 1 The best way to fly long distances is definitely with the aid of narcotics! Friday’s flight was only 11 and a half hours, which is even better really than the usual flying times. I can only presume there was a tailwind or something, but…