Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather,
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!
Today’s weather forecast was more positive than negative, and so thereforewas the shift in Neil’s mood, which had improved considerably. We had tried telling him that a wet day in Florida must still be better than a day at work, or that Barry would swap places with him in an instant but it was just the change in weather he was waiting for.
After breakfast, we decided to head to Celebration nice and early, whilst it was cloudy but fine. Parking was easy and there weren’t many people around. We headed to our favourite Starbucks and sat outside in the lovely warm air as the sun started to break through.
I’ve mentioned many times how much I really love this place. For me, it epitomises everything I love about this trip. Here I feel relaxed, chilled, safe and happy. I love the buildings and architecture, and it is somewhere I would be very happy to settle.
After a while, we moved to the rocking chairs by the lake and sat for a little longer. Although there were no gators to be seen, there was plenty of other wildlife to accompany the Barred Owl Karen had seen outside that morning at the villa.
Eventually, we ambled the one-mile route around the lake. It was blissful. The temperature, in the low 80s, was perfect for us.
The main street was still festooned with Halloween decorations and closed to traffic, but we had a wander and browsed in a couple of shops. This was after a five-minute sit-down for me on a bench to get rid of the sciatica that had suddenly come on. We then headed back to the car.
On the way back, we called into Publix to get some rolls for lunch and replenish the villa’s milk supply.
After lunch, Karen and Neil headed outside to take advantage of the break in the weather, whilst I did some admin and then set myself the challenge of finding a way to watch the City match on the TV in the lounge.
It took me flipping ages. First of all, I had to get a stream working on the MacBook and then try, unsuccessfully at first, to cast it to the TV. Eventually, I got it working just as the match kicked off.
Neil stayed outside and watched on his phone. My stream was two minutes behind his, and I could tell from hearing Karen’s reaction whenever Norwich scored that I knew what was coming up!
I felt bad, though, when I found out that Barry wasn’t able to watch at home in Norwich, as I had just cancelled my Sky Sports subscription. I really couldn’t justify the extra £500 it was costing us for the amount of sport I was watching. Apart from England Test cricket, the Ryder Cup and Norwich games, nothing else interested me. I will sort something out for Barry when I return.
Anyhow, another good win for Norwich. That’s three in a row since I’ve been away. Is that telling me something? Should I stay here longer for the good of the club?
At 5.30pm, we headed out again, this time in lovely dry conditions, to Disney Springs. We parked in the Orange Garage again.
It was noticeably much busier this time, everywhere, as we made our way to Blaze to get pizzas for our dinner. As usual, they were top quality, and we all devoured them before sitting for a while, just soaking up the atmosphere.
We walked slowly around parts of Disney Springs that we had missed a couple of days earlier. We watched a few minutes of the various bands playing on the different stages as we passed them. We almost had a Dole Whip but decided to save ourselves for a Ghirardelli ice cream later on, at their temporary location whilst their permanent shop was being ‘remodelled’.
No purchases were made apart from a coffee cup thing for Karen to use when working. At Ghirardelli, we had our ice creams, which, despite just ordering a single scoop of chocolate ice cream, were ludicrously expensive (just over £10 each) but were ludicrously delicious and something we cannot get anywhere else.
With those safely inside our bellies, we headed back.
At the villa, Karen and Neil settled down with a beer to watch the midterm election results coming in on the US news channels. What I have found fascinating is how low-key it has all been over here. There has been minimal coverage, and you would hardly have known the elections were taking place. We have only seen a handful of posters or adverts. No one over here appears to have been talking about it, despite the potential political changes. Certainly, no one has spoken to us about it all.
In fact, what we have seen on BBC News is that the UK seems to have been far more worked up about it than the average American. I guess that like home, Governments come and go as do politicians but not much of it usually affects peoples day to day lives or routines and they carry on regardless.
After a while, when the results became more obvious, I left Karen watching the BBC 10pm news, which was some five hours behind. It was still largely speculation about the results, when we had already seen them being announced, which seemed rather pointless to me.
