For the second season in a row Brentford started with an away game at Brunton Park. Sadly there was no repeat of last season's 3-1 win with the Bees going down 2-0 in a dismal performance.
Tonight attention has turned to the League Cup and we're playing at GP against Cheltenham Town. It's 2-1 at the moment and I'm listening to the Bees World commentary. It's been pretty crap since half time with the Robins having got a goal back and seemingly bossing the play. After such a dominant first half performance it's looks like were going to be holding on for the last quarter of an hour!
After England's piss-poor showing at the World Cup (there's even a crap friendly tomorrow night!) and the inevitable slating of the apparent 'cream' of English football it's great to have the Bees back playing week in week out. Last season we finished 9th, a great showing in our first season back in League One after a couple in the basement, and this season we look well equipped to make a decent push for the play-offs. Not that Bees fans will be looking forward to that, we've got a dismal record in the end of season lottery!
It's Walsall at GP on Saturday and I can't wait to get back amongst the usual faces. There's even a new Bees fan, Paul and Lynda had a baby boy just over a month ago and he's already looking good in his Brentford romper suit :)
My last blog post was about the Brits at the European Athletics in Barcelona. Turned out to be a very good championships with plenty of great British performances :) Mo Farah did the 5,000m 10,000m double, super Jess won her heptathlon gold (although it was closer than a lot of people expected), Andy Turner took gold in the 110m high hurdles and Phillips Idowu won long jump gold. We even managed to dominate a couple of events with two British 1-2's. Chris Thompson took silver behind Mo in the 10,000m with Dai Greene and Rhys Williams taking the top two podium places in the 400m hurdles.
To many people's surprise, Sarah said he didn't even deserve to be in the final, Mark Lewis-Francis took silver in the 100m and there were plenty of other good performances which the BBC have done a good job of summing up here and in Tom Fordyce's blog here. The two 4x100m relay disasters didn't happen, right ;)
Last week myself and Sarah were in Rhodes for leisurely weeks holiday so she missed the final two days of competition. The V+ box came to the rescue again and she was straight into the living room to watch the recorded coverage as soon as we got back to the flat on Sunday at 06:45! If this isn't the behaviour of a total athletics geek I don't know what is! I had a few hours kip like any normal person would!
Lardos was the nearest town, about a 25 minute walk away, so we went there most nights. We did have a night in Pefkos and also one in Lindos but Lardos was much more convenient and a lot better value.
We finally ventured out last Friday (ooooh, just realised this Friday is Friday 13th!!), to the large waterpark near Faliraki ;) I'd not been to one since a school trip to the Ardèche in my second year at St. Mark's and I wasn't all that keen to go. To tell the truth I was a bit nervous.
After a gentle introduction on a few of the tamest slides we started to move on to the more daunting attractions. I actually think we went on the worst ride quite early in the day.
The 'Sting Ray' has a really steep drop-in which only becomes apparent once you've sat down on the ring and given yourself the heave-ho on the railings and by that time it's way too late anyway. I've found this on YouTube:
It probably doesn't do the drop-in justice but it is pretty scary the first time.
I'd also never been on the steep slides before but after a bit of persuasion from Sarah I took the plunge.
From left to right are the Turbo Slide, Kamikaze and Free-fall. Your brain tells you that Free-fall is the worst because it is a steep, straight drop but I thought the Turbo Slide was the worst.
After going over two humps in quick succession you end up airborne for a split second before going into a tight curve.
The Kamikaze has just one hump which again sends you airborne for a short while but you're soon down the steep part of the slide and heading horizontally to the plunge pool at the bottom.
Although it doesn't look it, the Free-fall slide is the easiest ride. Like the Sring-Ray it's the view from the top that is daunting and after that it's just straight down to the horizontal final few metres.
My advice, don't look down...
If you've made it this far you'll no doubt be glad to hear that Brentford held on to their 2-1 lead to book their first appearance in the second round of the League Cup for three seasons.
Here's hoping for a decent draw when it's made.
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