Blogs from Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

The Other Half was keen to lose the Christmas pounds. Weight and financially. As a former keen attendee of the gym world, she has now reached the lack of motivation after work phase of life. The answer? Her very own spinning bike. A find myself driving down the rain soaked A38, heading to an industrial estate on the outskirts of England' second city. The rain lashed down, as we cut across the motorway by East Midlands Airport. The current road "improvements" have turned the area into something akin to a muddy battlefield. We turned on to the A38 by the huge Toyota plant on the far side of derby. It remains to be seen whether the Japanese car giant sees this as a major centre for their European operation post Brexit. There was little of note ... read more

H - ... even if it is against Walsall! Its rare that I am in the England at the right time to actually get to a chance to see my team play. This week was different. The Villa were playing their first pre-season friendly game against Walsall at Bescott Stadium before heading off to Hong Kong for a tournament. Walsall are two leagues below the Villa so a comfortable win should have been on the cards, but one never knows in these pre-season games. With a little intrepidation I took my American nephew along to see the game ... He has seen the Villa play before a couple of times at Villa Park, but he hasn't seen them play away. Away games can often be more fun, as it is only the hard core fans that ... read more

Welcome to Lichfield, Birmingham, Manchester and now Scunthorpe. These are the places we have managed to chalk up on our trip so far in England, with everywhere FREEZING cold, but loving it!! Let’s go all the way back to Lichfield. So, we arrived at Lichfield after our adventurous train-missing-debacle at 5:30pm on Friday, 26th November, and got picked up by Jeff (Mischa’s Uncle) from the train station. After that, it was really just a night of catch-ups (Lucy and the twins were there!!), a bit of dinner, some TV watching and then off to bed. During the TV watching we were shown a few new programmes, most of which Jess seemed to enjoy. A few of these include Coronation St (a bit like Neighbours) and I’m a Celebrity….Get Me out of Here (which is actually filmed ... read more