Watching Coldplay live at Glastonbury in 3D (365:176)

UK June 2011 – Day 11. Today we met Dandy

Dandy is my niece’s pony, and a fine animal he is too, though it seems he is inclined to eat a little too much. We watched Dandy go through his paces and then we were formally introduced.We spent the rest of the day with Ian and Marcelle, having our third curry of the week in the evening. We finished the day off watching Coldplay live at Glastonbury in 3D, which explains why we appear to be wearing dark glasses, inside at night. The 3D TV is a sign of my brother’s geeky gadget weakness. You name it, he has to have it.

Tonight we get to sleep in his huge family tent in the back yard – it’s so big we could easily set up ours inside and still have lots of room to spare. Tomorrow we’ll be setting off for Scotland via Birmingham. It’s going to be nice to get out on the road for a while.

Now we’re moving on it’s time to assess the trip so far. Our visit has been a lot easier for me than I expected. I thought I’d find it emotionally draining, but it’s not turned out that way. The strangest thing I’ve encountered is how odd all the accents sound, it’s almost like everyone has developed a Dick Van Dyke (Marry Poppins) cockney accent. My ear must have become tuned to the American accent which I don’t notice anymore. Driving has been quite easy (so far), though I live in fear of grabbing the hire car’s right steering column control stalk and breaking it off, mistaking it for the gear change, which on our van is mounted on the steering column.

Another strange thing has been seeing bits of furniture and some of my personal items. They’ve been turning up without warning in all sorts of places. They take me aback for a moment while I assimilate where I’ve seen them before. I found my old bathroom scales; when I checked them they still held my data, so I updated my age. I had to add five years – gosh. I also realised the bed we were sleeping on at Robert’s was probably the bed I used to sleep on in the garden all those years ago.

Today’s extras

Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.