Christmas, New Year and Summer

It's been a while (again) since I last posted. So here's another quick summary of what I've been up to for the last few weeks.

Well, I swapped Summer for Winter in mid-December, when I headed home to England (I also call Chile 'home'). And what a Winter it was...one of the coldest on record, a whole heap of snow and the country shutting down due to the total lack of preparation from the utterly, utterly useless government.

But anyway, I started off in London, staying with my brother and family. My other, Paris-based, brother was there as well. Plus, a plague hit my family in early 2010...a plague of babies. Both my brothers and two cousins had little'uns between January and March (and also one of my best friends a couple of months ago). Not being a huge baby fan, I was expecting the worst, but they were all surprisingly well-behaved. Not that you could get a word of sense out of the parents between 6am and 9pm, when all conversation revolved around babies, vomit and poonamis but everyone seemed very content (and tired) and that's the most important thing. I'm happy my family is happy. And I'm looking forward to them all getting older and being able to interact a bit more (the babies as well, ha).

So London was nice. And cold. I met up with some great friends, had a curry down on Brick Lane and large amounts of lovely London Pride.

London snow...

And then after two days, it was time to head up to Knowle, near Birmingham for Christmas number 1, with my Dad and his wife, Pat. We headed out on Saturday morning with severe weather warnings ringing in our ears. I had slept less than 3 hours, due to sleeping on the sofa and had woken up with a pinched nerve in my shoulder, leading to rather savage pain all down my right side. And a hangover. So when we got stuck in traffic caused by the freezing conditions and snow about 10 miles outside of London, I knew we were in for a long day...

We made it a total of 30 miles...in 6 hours before deciding to postpone the trip and pull into a hotel in a little village off the M40. Many people got stuck in their cars overnight, so we were lucky.

English travel chaos...

Anyway, we made it up the next day and had a nice time, despite it being cut short by a day.

A huge Chilean Araucaria in Knowle...

The bros. And a huge barbequed turkey (barbequed in minus 10C...)

Christmas number 2 (the real one) was spent down in with my cousins in the New Forest and was as fun as ever, watching the cricket (that was a hell of a beating you took there, Australia), drinking nice wine and eating so much food. The traditional Boxing Day walk was definitely needed.

The cold weather didn't really bother me all that much. It was a lot nicer than the usual mild, damp, drizzly weather I usually experience when I go back to England. Freezing cold, snow and blue skies are so pretty. It warmed up after Christmas and it wasn't as much fun. Christmas should be cold, anyway. But a Summer new year is a lot more fun that a Winter one. But I still had a good time, hanging out with friends and playing with indoor fireworks (which I hadn't seen since I was about 6 years old).

There was even the one that looks like something a baby produces several times a day...

After new year, there was time for some fairly serious sales shopping in London and also for a trip to Fulham's Craven Cottage to watch my beloved West Brom get beaten 3 nil. And, as I was sitting with the Fulham fans, I had to 'celebrate' all of their goals. Oh well.

And now I'm back in Chile, walking the dogs and enjoying the Summer.

The flight was ok, despite the lack of legroom...

And look who were waiting for me at home, in Santa Cruz, Colchagua Valley...

Summer dog walking. Nice.

I'm also really busy. Work has picked up massively already this year (lots more people interested in real estate in Chile) and I have two, possibly three projects of my own to do. I'm feeling very optimistic about 2011. Here's hoping for a good year for everyone.

And I'll leave you with my favourite book section in WHSmith's ever:

England: Football

Me at the Emirates

As a West Bromwich Albion fan, I was obviously very excited to see us win promotion to the Premier League last season. And I was even more excited to see that we were playing Arsenal on the first day of the season in London just as I'd be back in England. Thanks to my brother I was hooked up with a ticket. Unfortunately, it was sitting with the Arsenal supporters but beggars cannot be choosers when it comes to watching the Baggies so I gratefully accepted the freebie.

Now I always find it funny when foreigners bang on about English hooligans and how dangerous it must be to watch live football in England. England is now almost certainly the safest country in which to watch top-class football. There are no fences around the pitch (and no one but the players ever set foot on it), policing is generally low key and fans are free to mingle outside of the stadium (with the exception of derby games when things are a bit stricter). No trouble whatsoever. Matches in Italy are terrifying from what I've heard from people with experience and Spain and France aren't much better.

I am lucky enough to support a club with renowned friendly fans. We don't have a reputation for anything other than being just good supporters. In around 25 years of going to games, I've never seen any trouble and that includes quite a bit of time in the '80s when hooliganism was a problem. Some clubs, such as Wolves, Cardiff, West Ham and Millwall have justifiably poor reputations for nasty supporters but even that lot are a bunch of pussycats in general.

Fans from both clubs outside the Arse stadium.


So back to the games...we lost both, The first against Arsenal away and the second at home to Everton. Both games we could and should have at least drawn and possibly won but such is the life of an Albion fan.

One benefit of supporting a club like West Brom is that you learn how to handle disappointment exceptionally well.

The difference between Arsenal and West Brom in terms of wealth is immense and can be seen in their respective stadiums. Arsenal recently moved to the brand new, state of the art 68,000 capacity Emirates Stadium. It is an incredible place, beautifully designed with comfy, cushioned seats, decent toilets and great acoustics. It's a fantastic modern football stadium. It's a shame it's full of boring, silent Arsenal fans, without doubt the worst home supporters I've ever heard. Their old stadium, Highbury, was nicknamed Highbury Library and it was not uncommon to see students at matches studying for exams as it was the quietest place in London during home matches :)

Where I really wanted to be...with the Albion fans.

West Brom's The Hawthorns, on the other hand, is an old school football stadium. We've played at The Shrine for 100 odd years and, although it's been recently redeveloped, it will never be a modern stadium unless the whole thing is razed and rebuilt. I wouldn't want that to happen. The noise the 28,000 crowd generates is awesome. The only other place I've heard such good home fans is at Fratton Park, home to The Skates.

The Hawthorns


Baggie Bird


Hopefully we'll start winning games soon.

England: Places

So I'm back in Chile after a pretty fantastic break in England. The flight was ok (thanks to legal drugs again) and I was greeted on my arrival by the first perfect blue sky I'd seen since...well...leaving Chile. The weather in England was truly rubbish. I spent a couple of days in Paris and, after a promising first morning, it was rubbish over there as well. I can't wait for summer here.

Anyway, it's good to be home. After a couple more trip posts, I'll be back to Valparaiso blogging in a short while.

A few photos of the places in England I've been to over the past 3 weeks:

Bathampton, just outside of Bath, Avon



Headstones for goal posts in Hammersmith Cemetery, London


Random, typical street in Fulham, London


Self-Service Check-Outs in Highbury, London


The Gherkin, The City, London


The Tate, London


Balham Tube Station, London



The back garden, Sherborne, Dorset


Just behind the back garden



East Chinnock, Somerset


Burton Bradstock, Dorset


Britain's longest sequence of canal locks (there were a fair few), near Warwick


Cows in a field, near Warwick

England: Characters

Sometimes, after being away from England for a long time, I start to wonder if I'll still like my friends and vice-versa when we see each other again. I usually get to see everyone at least once a year but this time it's been over 19 months for most of them...and up to 5 years (!) for some others. I'm happy to report that we still all get on...I've had such a good time catching up with everyone... These people are the reason that, no matter how long I live abroad, England will always be home.

Some of the stars of the ever-exciting 'The Matt Show':

The brother, the mother, the sister in law


The Me, the brother, the mother.

Nick (you don't want to know what he's trying not to look at on his computer...)


Nick, Ollie, Prune


Bertie, Prune


Andrea


Former porteño, Jay


Helen

Anne

Andrea and Jen (happy)


Andrea and Jen (bored of my incessant photo taking)

The father, the father's wife



Georgie


Percy, Leo


Otis