I booked a trip away with Gemma to Birmingham last week. She is a huge chocoholic so I decided to plan a surprise visit to Cadbury World. We stayed at the Eaton Hotel which has recently been refurbished to a very high standard and was excellent. The room was clean, quiet and in a great location to stop off, recharge our batteries and get ready for the next day. I would definitely recommend it.

To break up the journey north we drove through Warick to do some sight seeing. Originally we had planned to visit Warick Castle but in the end decided it was getting too late in the day so found a quaint, old fashioned tea room instead and had a late lunch that included homemade sandwiches, traditional lemonade and a huge slice of cake. Delicious!

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For my birthday this year I was the excited recipient of a pair of tickets to see Jimmy Carr live. He is, in every way, the same prim and proper, smartly dressed, clean cut comedian that you see on the TV. That is until he speaks with added profanity and the sort of subject matter that made the entire audience laugh out loud and then gasp in disapproval. This is a skill he has mastered. Telling the most outrageous, disgusting, politically incorrect jokes and making any audience laugh!

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September has been a relatively quiet month so I took the opportunity to make a few minor alterations to the website to spruce it up a little and keep it current. You may have already noticed that I have changed my snap shot at the top of the website.

The previous picture was taken in Lanzarote last year and was getting a little out of date. I decided to stick with the theme and take another photo in Portugal this year. My method; find a nondescript, yet distinctly arty door, stand in front of it, arms crossed and make it appear as though I’m guarding it!

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Considering it’s only a short drive away it would be rude of me not to attend the V Festival, so this year, as I have done in previous years, I bought the tickets months in advance. We decided to go on Sunday because Oasis were headlining, however, on the day Liam Gallagher cancelled due to Viral Laryngitis and they didn’t perform.

To be honest, it didn’t really bother me because it meant that Snow Patrol took their slot at the end of the day. You may remember from my previous post ‘Snow Patrol at the o2 Arena‘ I was eager to see them perform again.

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After what seemed like months of research to find a good place to go on holiday this year, Gemma and I settled on a self catering apartment on the outskirts of Albufeira in Portugal. I’ve been to Portugal many times in the past and it really is a beautiful country. Despite my reservations about using a cheap flight operator, EasyJet were an absolute pleasure to fly with, we even arrived earlier than expected so don’t be swayed by all of the negative comments you read on the Internet these days. On our arrival to Faro airport in the early afternoon it was above thirty degrees centigrade, ‘muito quente’!

On our first outing we were a little disappointed at the lack of ‘local’ restaurants, that was until we walked to the ‘old town’ which turned out to be the crown jewel of the area. Although heavily focused on tourism, Albufeira old town was teeming with life during the day and a hot spot of activity, street performers and a real feel good feeling at night.

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