Islands and back to writing!

Friday 10th July

Katie went to a second doctors today as the one she saw last night gave her a pretty thorough going over but could not determine what was wrong with her. This doctor also cannot determine the cause of her pain so has recommended blood tests. The pain is not so severe today and at the moment Katie feels she will wait until we are all back in the UK to get checked out again and if she has to have blood taken do it at that time.

Since getting back to Florida we seem to have failed to be able to get back into the routine we had anticipated. I had seen myself getting up in the morning, having a swim before breakfast then doing some writing whilst Baggage and Lisa get on with school work. We had let Baggages schooling lapse during the back end of the trip as the intention was to run it through the summer whilst we were in Florida and not moving about. We have now been here nearly three months and the routine has not been established, in fact in many ways it feels as if we are just waiting for our flights back to the UK at the end of August.

Today I did get back to my book for the first time since we got to Florida, though I could not really settle to it and in the couple of hours I tried to write only managed to pen a couple of sides of A4.

Saturday 11th July

Today Baggage gets a day off school and we are going to Islands of adventure, Universal’s second theme park. With the weather doing what it has been recently we decide to make an early start and then if the weather turns at least we will have got a few things in before the downpour.

We get there just after the park opens at 9am and it is already pretty busy, our first ride ‘The Hulk’ requires us to queue for about 20 minutes. I must be getting two old for fast roller coasters, when we get of The Hulk I feel disoriented and have a thumping headache.

Before lunch we manage to fit in the two main water rides in the park and get truly soaked. Baggage and Lisa both bought spare clothes, I opted not to and would still be damp four hours later when we returned to the house.

After lunch we rode Spiderman and One Fish Two Fish, Baggage also rode Cat in the Hat, then we decided to leave the park. Baggage was tired and had been moaning about one thing or another since lunchtime and Lisa and I had enough of it, also the clouds were darkening and we could see a storm coming in from the west. Tomorrow morning we were to see on the news that a torrential downpour hit the area just after we left, though we missed it completely as the clouds skirted north of our house. I guess we chose a good time to leave.

Tonight we got Baggage into bed particularly early and she must have been tired as despite her protests she was asleep within 30 minutes.

Sunday 12th July

Today I am going to watch the Grand Prix, I have not managed to see one since the one I caught at Midnight in Ohope. Unfortunately the coverage in the US is split between Speed and Fox and today’s race is on Fox who chose to air it mid afternoon rather than live, never mind I will just avoid the result and it is better than missing it altogether.

This morning we go out to get a few presents as we have a couple of Birthdays coming up that we have to send things back to the UK for, we do OK and get what we had in mind when we set out.

This afternoon I settle down on the sofa to watch the race, Lisa does also but after about 15 minutes is asleep and stays that way until all but the final lap. As Grand Prix races go it is OK, there is not a lot of action on the track but the result is good, Mark Webber won his first ever race after 130 starts, this years season keeps on resetting expectations.

After dinner I had planned to watch the shuttle launch on the TV and then watch the actual ascent out the back of the house. On a clear day you can see the rockets lift off as they rise directly east from here so for anything other than a morning launch the sun will not be in the way of the view and tonight’s was planned at 19:29. The launch was scrubbed however due to thunderstorms at the cape, just as well for us as after dinner Katie suggested we all play cards and I completely forgot the launch until just after it was due to have gone up. Maybe I will have better luck next time, it is rescheduled for tomorrow.