Do I Buy a Lottery Ticket or Put My House on Red Number 7?

My apologies for having been a little quiet on the blog front recently but things have been a quite hectic and I haven't had a great deal of time to experience things to write about.

Things are still pretty busy and tomorrow we say farewell to our Discovery Travel group but look forward to welcoming the School Journey Association at the weekend.

Johann, who was promoted to Head Chef after TT Week is doing a fine job and here he is pictured with Irene & me.

Unfortunately, the fantastic weather we have had since May, seems to be having a (hopefully) temporary break, so due to the bucketing rain, I brought my car to work for a change this morning.

Being a lazy so and so, I parked as close as I could to the Welbeck. Usually when I choose what looks like the easy way, things tend to backfire on me and everything goes suitably wrong to punish me for being idle but this morning, it would seem that my luck was in:

At around 7:50 this morning, one of the Ravenswood trees came down - that's my car on the right!

So I've yet to decide whether to buy a lottery ticket, contact our in house bookmaker, 'Honest Dave' and put all Irene's money on Dodgy Nag in the 5:30 at Haydock or stick our house on NO. 3 Red at the Casino.

Any advice?

Morning Paddle and Afternoon at The Creek without a Paddle

I hope you're not becoming bored with the kayak stories yet but immediately after a busy Mad Sunday breakfast, Irene & I loaded the boats once again (we're getting quicker, not to mention safer ;) ) and this time made the short journey down to Douglas Harbour once again.

With the glorious TT weather prevailing, we had decided to try and find the elusive Douglas Head seal and explore the coastline under Marine Drive from the other side.

What we hadn't realised was how choppy the water would be on the rounding the Stabit Breakwater and it was great watching Irene riding the waves!

Once again the elusive seal proved elusive (Welbeck Facebook watchers will have seen the water where the seal was in an earlier photo) but it was interesting seeing the lighthouse close up from a different angle.

By the way, if anyone wants to buy a lighthouse, it seems to be for sale. Though it would be a fabulous place to live in many ways, personally, I wouldn't fancy it on a foggy day with the horn blaring next to your ear and I imagine furniture removal would be quite challenging!

The tide was very high and it became clear that though paddling out was very easy, with the wind and waves behind us, our return would be a little more difficult, so we limited ourselves to half an hour outwards.

My GPS watch told me that despite stopping to take photographs on travelling South, we were doing kilometres at just over 9 minutes but when we turned into the breeze, they were taking 11 minutes.

It was great fun coming back into the harbour, surfing this time, though it the water was more choppy than rolling waves. We certainly knew we'd worked hard.

For the afternoon, we caught the bus to Peel which though packed with TT fans was beautiful in the sunshine.

From the Jam Perfectly Preserved

Last night Wednesday 1st June, Irene & I went to the Villa Marina to see 'From the Jam,' featuring original band member, Bruce Foxton but not Paul Weller (though apparently the latter has worked on their new album.)

I had worried that this gig wouldn't be too successful, having been moved from Saturday and being held on a TT Practice evening, so when we arrived to a near empty hall, not long before 9pm, it seemed that perhaps those fears had been realised.

We had met up, purely by chance with our friends Marie & Murray Lambden, therefore, it seemed sensible to go and buy another drink before the performance, so it was during the queuing process that without fanfare, the noise levels rose and by the time we returned to our spot by the stage the band were in full swing, belting out their old Kinks cover, David Watts and the Royal Hall was packed with a very decent crowd.

It's a long time since I've been to a concert in the UK or further afield but is it a purely 'Manx thing' that everyone just happily lets you go past with your drinks back to your place right at the front? Later on, when things really got rocking, my memories are of being literally crushed in the surge forward but despite the dancing (otherwise known as pogo or jumping up and down) becoming quite animated, I was still able to prevent Irene being jostled too much.

Unfortunately, I suspect it's more of an 'age thing,' as it seems most of the acts we get to see are groups with remnants from the past and you could perhaps describe most of the audiences similarly.

Back to the music and it was excellent as unlike the aforementioned Mr. Weller, they played all their old hits in addition to a few album tracks and only one or two songs from their new material.

Without my glasses on, I probably wouldn't have noticed that Russell Hastings wasn't the Modfather and that Bruce Foxton had aged 30 years since I last saw photograph of him.

During the encore, they really built to a crescendo and I'm sure most of the people watching thoroughly enjoyed the night.

Before you come across on holiday, it is an idea to pre-book any of the shows that you want to see, as it can usually be done online. This year's highlights include Tom Jones 26th July and Cast on Saturday but you can check out who's on at concerts in the Villa Marina and Gaiety Theatre or organised with them as ticketing agents https://www.villagaiety.com/