Hello from Wales!
Jan. 25th, 2009 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
supertinksBore da! Wales is sunny, with bright blue skies today. Yesterday it wasn't so sunny, and it absolutely hounded down with rain just as we were driving away from the stadium. But I'm getting ahead of myself..
Yesterday morning we got up at a sensible time (that is, we woke up early like we always do, but lounged in bed with the cat for a while), pottered about the house packing a bag and sorting out the cat, and having scrambled eggs and beans for breakfast.
At about half eleven, we left the house and drove to Wales. Jamie did the English bit, and once we'd crossed over the bridge we stopped at the services and swapped places. I drove the rest of the way to Swansea, which was new and exciting for me, as once we left the M4 at J42 I was in unfamiliar territory. We made it to the stadium without incident, arriving at just past half two, where the carpark had just opened and we were the fifth car inside. We parked up, and made our way over to the pubs next to the stadium to find food.
There was an hour wait at Frankie and Benny's, so we wandered over the river and found a Pizza Hut, where although we had to wait for maybe ten minutes at the door while they cleared tables and so on, we were seated and served quickly, and had ordered food, eaten food and paid for it in about half an hour. Which on one hand was brilliant, on the other it wasn't so good, as it now left us with 2 hours to kill before kick off!
We wandered round the shops (primarily New Look, Next and TK Maxx, where I was most disappointed by the selections, except for one or two gorgeous evening gowns in TK Maxx), then decided to go find somewhere to have a drink. Starbucks had a massive queue coming out of the door, so we headed over to the pub by the stadium, where it took me about quarter of an hour to get to the bar to get beer. Then we had to sit outside in the cold to drink it, which wasn't so bad, as I was wearing all my rugby match layers so would have melted if I'd stayed inside any longer! Then we headed into the stadium, to wait out the last half an hour inside watching the teams warming up, and the pre-match entertainment.
The game itself (Ospreys v Leicester, in the final pool round of the Heineken Cup) was really enjoyable. Both teams could still have qualified, but the Ospreys needed to win without letting Leicester get a bonus point in order to qualify as the pool winners. The Ospreys were showing lots of ambition and so on, but Leicester brought a really negative game plan, and there was an awful lot of cheating going on. The ref (a Frenchman) was awful, and at times looked like he'd been bribed by the Tigers to make sure the Ospreys couldnt score the points they needed. So many penalties given against the Ospreys, when so many offences by the Tigers were ignored. It was incredible! And the crowd - my god! The Osprey's crowd are usually pretty unfriendly, but the crowd yesterday were like animals. It was unbelievable. Of course, there was no trouble after the game, once the final whistle blows all that aggression and anger and so forth disappears, unlike at a football match. But there was much in the way of booing, and chanting of "cheat! cheat! cheat!" whenever the ref let the Tigers get away with stuff. It was a very intimidating atmosphere.
The long and the short of it is that although the Ospreys won the game, the ref kept the Tigers within 7 points with his penalties, so the Tigers have qualified as group winners, and the Ospreys are dependent on today's results (in particular, Bath v Toulouse, and the Wasps and Leincester games) to see if 20 points is enough to earn them a spot as one of the two highest scoring runners up. It should be, because even if more than two teams get to 20 pts, the Ospreys have a massive try scored advantage which should see them through.
After the game, we went back to the car and enjoyed the mass exodus from the car park, which was completely unsupervised by any parking officials or anything, so there was lots of horn beeping and arm waving and the like as people cut each other up in their eagerness to get out. As we were right at the front, it really wasn't so bad for us. It started raining almost as soon as we got into the car, and that pretty much settled in for the rest of the evening.
We got to Jamie's parents' house at about half eight-ish, and were greeted by enthusiastic kittens (although, the size they are now, its hard to remember that they are in fact still technically kittens!). They are both much more open and friendly than they have been previously, actively coming up for attention and so on. Very cute. Rosco is still podgy, Bo is still mostly deaf. We ate curry, and watched Air Force One. Then we went to bed.
Today we are going to a carvery for lunch, and then Jamie and I are driving into Cardiff (I believe) to visit an old friend of his from his pre-university days. And then we are going home, to a poor lonely Mr Fidget, who is probably fast asleep right now, and wondering where we are and why we aren't there to feed him!
At least hopefully the house won't have been invaded by Crotchspider, as we opened the upstairs window for Fidget, not the downstairs one.
Yesterday morning we got up at a sensible time (that is, we woke up early like we always do, but lounged in bed with the cat for a while), pottered about the house packing a bag and sorting out the cat, and having scrambled eggs and beans for breakfast.
At about half eleven, we left the house and drove to Wales. Jamie did the English bit, and once we'd crossed over the bridge we stopped at the services and swapped places. I drove the rest of the way to Swansea, which was new and exciting for me, as once we left the M4 at J42 I was in unfamiliar territory. We made it to the stadium without incident, arriving at just past half two, where the carpark had just opened and we were the fifth car inside. We parked up, and made our way over to the pubs next to the stadium to find food.
There was an hour wait at Frankie and Benny's, so we wandered over the river and found a Pizza Hut, where although we had to wait for maybe ten minutes at the door while they cleared tables and so on, we were seated and served quickly, and had ordered food, eaten food and paid for it in about half an hour. Which on one hand was brilliant, on the other it wasn't so good, as it now left us with 2 hours to kill before kick off!
We wandered round the shops (primarily New Look, Next and TK Maxx, where I was most disappointed by the selections, except for one or two gorgeous evening gowns in TK Maxx), then decided to go find somewhere to have a drink. Starbucks had a massive queue coming out of the door, so we headed over to the pub by the stadium, where it took me about quarter of an hour to get to the bar to get beer. Then we had to sit outside in the cold to drink it, which wasn't so bad, as I was wearing all my rugby match layers so would have melted if I'd stayed inside any longer! Then we headed into the stadium, to wait out the last half an hour inside watching the teams warming up, and the pre-match entertainment.
The game itself (Ospreys v Leicester, in the final pool round of the Heineken Cup) was really enjoyable. Both teams could still have qualified, but the Ospreys needed to win without letting Leicester get a bonus point in order to qualify as the pool winners. The Ospreys were showing lots of ambition and so on, but Leicester brought a really negative game plan, and there was an awful lot of cheating going on. The ref (a Frenchman) was awful, and at times looked like he'd been bribed by the Tigers to make sure the Ospreys couldnt score the points they needed. So many penalties given against the Ospreys, when so many offences by the Tigers were ignored. It was incredible! And the crowd - my god! The Osprey's crowd are usually pretty unfriendly, but the crowd yesterday were like animals. It was unbelievable. Of course, there was no trouble after the game, once the final whistle blows all that aggression and anger and so forth disappears, unlike at a football match. But there was much in the way of booing, and chanting of "cheat! cheat! cheat!" whenever the ref let the Tigers get away with stuff. It was a very intimidating atmosphere.
The long and the short of it is that although the Ospreys won the game, the ref kept the Tigers within 7 points with his penalties, so the Tigers have qualified as group winners, and the Ospreys are dependent on today's results (in particular, Bath v Toulouse, and the Wasps and Leincester games) to see if 20 points is enough to earn them a spot as one of the two highest scoring runners up. It should be, because even if more than two teams get to 20 pts, the Ospreys have a massive try scored advantage which should see them through.
After the game, we went back to the car and enjoyed the mass exodus from the car park, which was completely unsupervised by any parking officials or anything, so there was lots of horn beeping and arm waving and the like as people cut each other up in their eagerness to get out. As we were right at the front, it really wasn't so bad for us. It started raining almost as soon as we got into the car, and that pretty much settled in for the rest of the evening.
We got to Jamie's parents' house at about half eight-ish, and were greeted by enthusiastic kittens (although, the size they are now, its hard to remember that they are in fact still technically kittens!). They are both much more open and friendly than they have been previously, actively coming up for attention and so on. Very cute. Rosco is still podgy, Bo is still mostly deaf. We ate curry, and watched Air Force One. Then we went to bed.
Today we are going to a carvery for lunch, and then Jamie and I are driving into Cardiff (I believe) to visit an old friend of his from his pre-university days. And then we are going home, to a poor lonely Mr Fidget, who is probably fast asleep right now, and wondering where we are and why we aren't there to feed him!
At least hopefully the house won't have been invaded by Crotchspider, as we opened the upstairs window for Fidget, not the downstairs one.
