![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 19th, 2010 10:15 amUp at sparrow's fart yesterday morning to travel down to Plymouth with the Hawk girls. This time I was sat at the front with Mike M, so had the task of loading the CDs into the player : it was the same mix of mostly loud dance music as on previous trips, though at least this time the disc with Akon's Sorry, Blame It On Me on was the first one played, before the girls had had time to get into a "Skip!"-shouting mood, and indeed one of them announced at the beginning that she loved the song, so I had a feeling then I'd be safe. I did indeed get to hear the track in full - despite driver Andy's complaints about the repetitive nature of some of the lyrics: "Somebody just blame him and have done with it!"
Exeter services were again our scheduled stop, though before that we made a quick call at a little roadside garage somewhere around Honiton to empty bladders and satisfy chocolate cravings. Being just after 10 am when we arrived at Exeter, it was too early for burgers and chips, so we all hit Costa coffee or, in a couple of cases, the main restaurant for a late full English breakfast!
Once we'd left Exeter it wasn't long before the girls started asking how far from Plymouth we were. Mike and a couple of the lasses were confused by our sat nav saying we had a couple of miles more to go than the road signs for Plymouth suggested; as the postcode we'd input at the start of the journey began PL17, I came up with the obvious explanation : the ground was some way out of town.
Indeed, to some of the lasses' perplexity we bypassed the city of Plymouth and left it behind with the sat-nav stating we still had ten miles to go, and crossed the Tamar bridge into Cornwall. It turned out we were playing at the ground of Callington Town FC, which we found - eventually. Once again we'd been given a wrong postcode, meaning the sat nav led us into a little alley in the middle of Callington town centre containing an Oxfam shop and a medical centre but nothing resembling a football ground.
A phone call to Trev followed - "We're opposite St Mary's church!" Trev just said the ground was next to Callington College, so Andy simply asked a friendly local where Callington College was. Once we'd started following his directions, Callington College was signposted.
There was, alas, no bar at the ground, though a tea bar was serving cold drinks - they did a roaring trade as all afternoon the weather was scorchio. Before the match Trev talked to the Plymouth coach who'd berated the ref non-stop during our home game - interestingly, Trev sympathised with him, agreeing that the official had been incompetent. A couple of the Plymouth girls said hello to us, so I told them "Your old mate Natalie Bavister scored against us the other week."
"Did she?" one Janner lass smiled. "Who's she playing for now?"
"Portsmouth."
"Good old Bavvie!"
It was a hard fought game which Hawks just about deserved to edge, which we did with a Leeta Rutherford strike from a corner during first-half injury time. After the match the Argyle people invited us over to Callington cricket club just down the road, where we were provided with Cornish pasties (delicious, you can't beat a real Cornish pasty from Cornwall) and the bar, joy, served Wells Bombardier and Peperamis. I noticed on sale something I hadn't seen before : Walkers have done a range of World Cup crisps.
I loved the ones Asda did in 2006, so was very glad to see these; I went for a packet of German Bratwurst Sausage flavour (very tasty). The others that the bar had in stock were Dutch Edam Cheese, French Garlic Baguette, Argentinian Flame Grilled Steak, Japanese Chicken Teriyaki (Stacie's choice) and Brazilian Salsa. Looking at the packet, it said there were 15 flavours in all.
We watched the first quarter-hour or so of Portsmouth v Aston Villa on TV - Portsmouth took the lead, sending most of the girls into raptures - before hitting the road. The journey back was much more low-key - it had been a long day's travelling - and we only had the head-thumping dance music for about an hour, as Andy put on Radio 5 for the rest of the Pompey match and later Jodie managed to colonise an empty radio frequency to broadcast music from her iPod on the bus radio.
Just been checking out Walkers' website to see the full list of flavours. I'll no doubt end up trying all of them between now and the end of the World Cup in July, but I do wish they'd included all 32 countries. Disappointed that Mexico are missing - surely we could have had Mexican chilli flavour or taco flavour? And no Switzerland? I don't expect chocolate-flavoured crisps, but if you can make Dutch Edam Cheese crisps you can sure as hell make Swiss cheese crisps. And what excuse can they have for leaving out Danish Bacon? Still, the Irish can rejoice - FIFA might not have listened to their plea to let them into the World Cup, but Walkers did!
Exeter services were again our scheduled stop, though before that we made a quick call at a little roadside garage somewhere around Honiton to empty bladders and satisfy chocolate cravings. Being just after 10 am when we arrived at Exeter, it was too early for burgers and chips, so we all hit Costa coffee or, in a couple of cases, the main restaurant for a late full English breakfast!
Once we'd left Exeter it wasn't long before the girls started asking how far from Plymouth we were. Mike and a couple of the lasses were confused by our sat nav saying we had a couple of miles more to go than the road signs for Plymouth suggested; as the postcode we'd input at the start of the journey began PL17, I came up with the obvious explanation : the ground was some way out of town.
Indeed, to some of the lasses' perplexity we bypassed the city of Plymouth and left it behind with the sat-nav stating we still had ten miles to go, and crossed the Tamar bridge into Cornwall. It turned out we were playing at the ground of Callington Town FC, which we found - eventually. Once again we'd been given a wrong postcode, meaning the sat nav led us into a little alley in the middle of Callington town centre containing an Oxfam shop and a medical centre but nothing resembling a football ground.
A phone call to Trev followed - "We're opposite St Mary's church!" Trev just said the ground was next to Callington College, so Andy simply asked a friendly local where Callington College was. Once we'd started following his directions, Callington College was signposted.
There was, alas, no bar at the ground, though a tea bar was serving cold drinks - they did a roaring trade as all afternoon the weather was scorchio. Before the match Trev talked to the Plymouth coach who'd berated the ref non-stop during our home game - interestingly, Trev sympathised with him, agreeing that the official had been incompetent. A couple of the Plymouth girls said hello to us, so I told them "Your old mate Natalie Bavister scored against us the other week."
"Did she?" one Janner lass smiled. "Who's she playing for now?"
"Portsmouth."
"Good old Bavvie!"
It was a hard fought game which Hawks just about deserved to edge, which we did with a Leeta Rutherford strike from a corner during first-half injury time. After the match the Argyle people invited us over to Callington cricket club just down the road, where we were provided with Cornish pasties (delicious, you can't beat a real Cornish pasty from Cornwall) and the bar, joy, served Wells Bombardier and Peperamis. I noticed on sale something I hadn't seen before : Walkers have done a range of World Cup crisps.
I loved the ones Asda did in 2006, so was very glad to see these; I went for a packet of German Bratwurst Sausage flavour (very tasty). The others that the bar had in stock were Dutch Edam Cheese, French Garlic Baguette, Argentinian Flame Grilled Steak, Japanese Chicken Teriyaki (Stacie's choice) and Brazilian Salsa. Looking at the packet, it said there were 15 flavours in all.
We watched the first quarter-hour or so of Portsmouth v Aston Villa on TV - Portsmouth took the lead, sending most of the girls into raptures - before hitting the road. The journey back was much more low-key - it had been a long day's travelling - and we only had the head-thumping dance music for about an hour, as Andy put on Radio 5 for the rest of the Pompey match and later Jodie managed to colonise an empty radio frequency to broadcast music from her iPod on the bus radio.
Just been checking out Walkers' website to see the full list of flavours. I'll no doubt end up trying all of them between now and the end of the World Cup in July, but I do wish they'd included all 32 countries. Disappointed that Mexico are missing - surely we could have had Mexican chilli flavour or taco flavour? And no Switzerland? I don't expect chocolate-flavoured crisps, but if you can make Dutch Edam Cheese crisps you can sure as hell make Swiss cheese crisps. And what excuse can they have for leaving out Danish Bacon? Still, the Irish can rejoice - FIFA might not have listened to their plea to let them into the World Cup, but Walkers did!
