McGahan hits 60 (that's years not mph)

Welbeck Hotel sponsored daredevil classic racer, multi Manx Grand Prix winner and ace project manager (he does a good bathroom eventually,) Chris McGahan was 60 on Friday 26th November and Irene and I were fortunate enough to be invited to his birthday party at the Masonic Hall in Peel the day after.

Apart from supplying his guests with three brilliant curries, Chris also laid on three excellent musical acts. A dude on guitar kicked off the night with some great singer-songwriter numbers, including 'Candy' by Paolo Nuttini' which was my personal favourite, followed by a rock group who played mostly their own music but also some classic Led Zepellin covers to really get the crowd on the dance floor.

The Ballaghs with Katie the Fiddler who used to be in the band, guesting on the violin, rounded things off with their punk folk numbers and had the venue bouncing.

With the event taking place on the west of the Island, I drove our entourage over and then we took a taxi home. The weather was fine if a little cold, so it was a bit of a shock to see the amount of snow that had fallen when I awoke this morning.

Ignoring advice to wait for the weather to improve, I decided to head out along Peel Road to investigate whether it would be safe to drive the car home. Just as I was about to set off, I realised that my fell running shoes which would have given me decent grip were in the car.

The advantage of having a 13 year old Sasquatch for a son is that right now, we have the same size feet, so I decided to borrow his shoes and because the snow seemed so thick and I was wary of the ice, I changed his short spikes for long ones.

Big mistake! As soon as I went past the Quarterbridge, the amount of snow lessened considerably and all you could hear was the clack of my spikes hitting the pavement. To add to my problems, I also realised that I needed to answer the call of nature.

Leaving Union Mills, it became apparent that that call was a little more urgent than I'd previously thought and there was no way I could make it to the public loo at Crosby, two miles down the road, so am afraid that I had to vault a gate. After careful consideration and the fact that I didn't know whose field it was, I have decided not to invoice the farmer for the fertiliser he didn't order.

Those of you that know me well, will be aware that I'm more of a walker than a runner and this was the longest distance I'd attempted to run for more than two years. By St. Johns, despite the fact that I was wearing two pairs of socks, the meeting of metal on tarmac was beginning to announce itself as being quite painful and the prospect of blistering only a week before my last race of the year was not one that I relished. Luckily, I had packed a spare pair of trainers in my rucksack, so I was able to change and complete my journey in relative comfort. However, if my walk next Sunday along the same course takes anything like the same amount of time, I've no chance of winning what could be the last Peel to Douglas, one of the oldest events on the athletics calendar.

P.S. will fill in the names of the solo artist and the band later whenI find out.

Camp Elton John to Star in the Isle of Man's Big Top

It's pretty amazing that Elton John will be playing just up the hill, June 16th in the Valhalla Marquee and a very impressive coup for Jonathon Irving and the Bay Festival team.

Even more amazing and impressive was the way the tickets were snapped up. A friend of mine had no trouble obtaining six and was less than two minutes on the telephone, though my wife spent half the morning on the internet and trying to call and had no luck whatsoever.

Irene wasn't quite so keen to spend £35 to stand outside the tent to watch but I've already purchased a two man tent and I've decided to pitch it in the bottom field at Nobles Park and I'm only going to charge £20 for people to listen to the concert. V.I.P. passes will also be on sale at only £120 and the purchasers will be allowed under canvas should it rain and will also receive a free glass of pomagne.

Strong Winds on Facebook

Facebook

Since my last post, the 'facebook' thing has taken off a little bit and we now have 26 friends and 56 other people who 'Like' us (one of whom appears to be me) so we still have a long way to go before we reach the huge numbers that I noticed some other establishments have when I was researching.



I'm still finding the prospect of hearing the minutiae of someone else's life a little odd and I have 'blocked' one of my daughter's friends who was always effing and blinding and getting into online spats.

Like blogging, it is sometimes a little difficult to think of apposite suject matter and the other worry is that if you put out too much content, then you run the risk of boring everyone and unbefriended.

Weather

It's 'Batten down the hatches!' today with storm force winds of up to 80 miles per hour having been promised. Tonight's sailings have already been cancelled but hopefully the flights will remain in operation.

Facebook

Well we've finally been dragged kicking and screaming into social networking and set up the Welbeck Hotel & Restaurant page: http://www.facebook.com/WelbeckHotel

So far, I must admit, I'm yet to enter into the spirit wholeheartedly and can't for the life of me work out why someone would want to tell the world that he can't make up his mind what flavour ice cream he wants (sorry Johnny ((you have to be careful not to upset your online friends.)))

Maybe that was irony that I didn't pick up on and through my personal page(business pages have to be set up as part of) it is good to hear about people that you no longer see on a regular basis.

The technical aspects do not seem to be overly difficult to grasp even for a dinosaur like me, so we'll just have to see how the whole thing progresses.