Portland

Early start, but catching a direct flight from Amsterdam to Portland meant we were there just after noon, west coast time. Immigration in Portland is a lot easier here than elsewhere - that is, unless you have a radioactive wife - I'll let Jo tell you about her immigration experience.

We had to try and stay awake however for a bit longer than usual, so we went for a walk along the river front just opposite our hotel:


We caught them filming a Macdonald's commercial:

After our stroll around the city centre, we went back and caught up with everyone and went out for dinner at a lovely seafood restaurant - which also had some lovely cask conditioned ale!

Dad

Here's a brief video of Dad strolling in the garden last Tuesday:

Luca last Friday

The bold boy stayed over last Friday - and he's already developing Ross-like tendencies if this photo's anything to go by:



I picked up my first case of my beer from Deeside Brewery - this was the first time I had tasted it - the photo was taken by Luca!:



and here's a brief video of Luca in action on Jo's computer:

Bringing it all back up to date

I've been pretty busy - check my golf and football blogs for my activities from Friday to Monday. The golf trip to Harrogate was particularly good this year - so much better than last, when we got soaked in Cornwall.

Our hotel was in the centre of town and the view from my bedroom window was:


Turn sharp right when you come out of the hotel and this is what you see:

Yes - Harrogate's an old spa town - and it's got some good golf courses, not to mention, like the rest of Yorkshire, some excellent ales. This was the front door of our hotel:

Looks a bit better than it really was. It was hot and I couldn't open the windows - in fact, they hadn't been opened in 40 years it seemed. Still the consolation was that it made all of our group - even Syd, who's 70 now - feel very young, as busload after busload of really old fogeys trooped in.

Anyway, must go and do some packing. Got a lot of work to do tomorrow and hopefully some golf in the evening, then off on the redeye to Amsterdam on Thursday morning.