Sunday, October 03, 2010

Not All Great In TW8

It's been a grim grim 36 hours in and around W12 (and in Britain in general judging by the coverage of Man City v Newcastle on ESPN) so having blogged about my close encounter with Uxbridge Road last week I thought I'd take the time to have a ramble.

Following on from little sister's birthday on 1st September mine wasn't far behind on 7th.  As usual I didn't arrange to do anything!  I'm never really fussed about celebrating my own birthday and turning 33 really wasn't anything to get excited about!  The previous weekend me and Sarah went for a a few beers around Westbourne Grove and then had dinner at Rodizio Rico.  I suppose that could count as a birthday meal ;)

Whenever we've been to Ricos before we've been able to sit at street level, so I was a bit disappointed that we had to sit downstairs.  It's a bit too bright down there with the white walls and it seems a lot more cramped.  There isn't as much atmosphere either because the kitchen is on the open-planned ground floor and you get to see all the cooking action.  I have to admit my mood wasn't helped having seen Brentford get soundly turned over 3-1 at GP by Rochdale in the afternoon so perhaps I'm not being totally fair.

September was a mixed bag for the Bees.  Mostly next to useless in the League, we ended the month bottom, but through to the fourth round of the League Cup (for only the second time in our history) having seen off Everton on penalties after the game finished 1-1.  There were great scenes at GP when we equalised and pitch invasion aside, it was another special Brentford moment when Phil Jagielka missed his spot kick to give us the win.

Thankfully yesterday we began October with a 2-1 derby win over Charlton, but September had all Bees fans starting to fear the worst.

To be fair the month started off OK.  We deservedly beat the then leaders Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 in a game televised by Sky and got the usual 0-0 draw at Bristol Rovers.  Then came the Everton game and we all thought the season had finally got out of first gear.  Sadly it wasn't to be as we drew 0-0 at home against Hartlepool, meekly surrendered 1-0 to Leyton Orient on a chilly Friday night in east London and then lost late on 1-0 at Brighton.  Five games, five points and one League goal later we found ourselves bottom of League One with fans starting to wonder if it was going to be another season of shattered dreams in TW8.

Anyway, September is over and after yesterday's win were up to (haha!!) second bottom.

Dan and Jenny came down to stay in the Bush last weekend and while Jen went off to indulge herself in the shoe-fest that is the new Selfridges Shoes Galleries me and Dan went to the Emirates to watch Arsenal loose 3-2 to West Brom.  He's finally got himself a red membership so should be down for a few more games over the coming seasons.

For the most part Arsenal were terrible, wonder where I've heard that before!  It was 0-0 at half-time with everyone's favourite 'keeper Manuel Almunia saving a Chris Brunt penalty but 3-0 to West Brom after 73 minutes.  Arsenal did manage to get it back to 3-2 by the end of the game but the sixty or so thousand Gooners leaving the ground at full time were a frustrated bunch.  It certainly makes you realise that us football fans are a fragile lot no matter what level of football we watch.

Right, enough of the football chat.

I've started the on the Spanish trail again.  There are a lot of familiar faces in the class and a few new people. It's good to be back in the classroom ready to crack on the summer break.

However, the biggest thing to happen this month will be a shock to most of my mates, Sarah and I bought a car.  I know, a CAR!!  We are the proud owners of a 2006 (56 plate) Renault Megane.


Sarah's brother wanted to get himself a new car so we gave him the £5k he had left to pay off on his car loan.  A pretty good deal I reckon.

I've hardly driven since I passed my test waaaay back in 1995 so it's going to be a bit of a rapid re-education.  I've driven a few times since then, mostly on holiday, but I'm going to have to get back up to speed pretty quickly.  Besides, it's about time I got driving because 15 years is a long old time between passing your test and getting your first car!

Ooooooh Just think of all those Bees away games I can go to ;)

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