Coldest day ever - 7 Dec 2008

As agreed yesterday, Dyson & Harry will head off early back to Manchester and stay the day at a hotel. They agree to take all our suitcases so that we can fit 5 of us in the other car and we will head down later on between 3 & 4pm.

I would have gone with Harry earlier as I after all had completed all MY darting obligations but I could have done with doing some Xmas shopping. However the youth player was with me and I decided to stay back and let him watch live the stage finals. I don't regret it as the atmosphere was good and I am sure that the kid will not forget it in a hurry. I also reflected on the time I had my 1st Winmau experience and I was also taken to see the finals so its only fair to do the same as someone kindly did for me so many years back.

As it turned out we left later that we thought! It was around 6pm and we were still in Bridlington. Henry the driver with Tom Tom (Jane) made a few mistakes which delayed our arrival in Manchester by around 20 minutes and him having to go to the centre of Manchester to the hotel were he stayed at also delayed everything by at least another 30 minutes (he had forgotten his passport there last week when he did his Xmas shopping before the Winmau, very clever young Henry).

I was not happy as I honestly thought we would were going to arrive earlier at the Trafford centre for some last minute shopping especially a gift I wanted to get for my niece.

Henry joked about it, but the fact is that I did it correctly. First darts then other obligations.

We arrived at the Trafford centre close to 10pm and despite Henry's assurances that as its Xmas shops will be open until 11pm I was very doubtful, his claims on the 24 hour ASDA also turned out to be wrong (that I agree is not his fault as the 10 foot sign did say 24 hour ASDA). Anyways the whole lot except the food court & the gaming area were CLOSED.

Like idiots we waited in the car for over 4 hours. So in my boredom I hooked up my laptop and connected to the Internet to pass the time and also nodded off for a few hours.

Before we knew it we were at Manchester Airport and heading back to Gibraltar.