Back in October I was lucky enough to go and see England v South Africa in the rugby world cup final. It was a superb weekend. My boss Richard managed to get tickets. Along with his brother James, other work colleague, Ritchie, we took the Eurostar to Calais and Richard drove to Paris. He had found a cheap hotel about a 45 minute walk from the stadium.

We arrived Friday afternoon. Ritchie and went and bought a rugby ball and tested our skills in a local park. We certainly weren't going to be selected to play in the final! In the evening we did some re-con and walked to the Stade De France. It took awhile, but it was interesting to see parts of Paris you wouldn't normally see. We watched the 3rd place play off between France and Argentina in the fan zone setup outside the ground.

Saturday we had a quick breakfast and made our way into Paris to the world cup village setup just by the Eiffel Tower. After taking in the atmosphere and watching New Zealanders trying to sell their tickets we walked to Garde De Nord to meet Richard and his friends before taking the train to the stadium.

The atmosphere was electric and the fans from both sides mingled together and shared a joke and some banter. It was all very good humoured. It was a good game, but England never really looked like winning. We did think England had scored a try, but it was rightly ruled out. South Africa deserved to win.

Sunday was the sad drive back to England. We had a late train so ended up in the duty free and an Australian bar watching the final Grand Prix of the season. An exciting weekend ended once I got home just before midnight.

Some photos of the weekend are here. Mostly taken with my phone so not great, but certainly gives an idea of the weekend.

Tags: France, Paris, World Cup Final

Great Britain played Croatia for a place in the World Group of the Davis Cup last weekend (22nd September). It was the last Saturday before my sister, Sally, went off to start her new life in Australia. We decided we would go to Wimbledon to watch the doubles. What a great day it turned out to be.

Despite the iffy tube journey getting there, we were seated on Number 1 court 20 minutes before the start of play. Even though we were in row x we had a great view. They really have designed the stadium well. No restricted views and the atmosphere was tremendous. I had taken my Canon 400d hoping to get some good shots, but was worried we would be too far back. My wife had leant me her 70-300 lens and as you can see it could zoom in to the court without problems.



Not only were GB trying to get into the World Group, but Tim Henman was also playing. If he and Jamie Murray could win, it would send Tim into retirement a winner. The crowd was firmly behind Great Britain, but Croatia had a strong following as well. They were in full voice as the won the first set, but slowly the two Brits found their feed and came strong. Croatia never gave up and the quality of tennis was very high. The BBC match report is here.



The match was almost three and half hours long, but the time just flew by. Fate was kind, and Tim hit the winning shot and I caught the moment.



More of the pictures I took are here.

I really must get back to the Wimbledon for the championships in July.

Tags: Tennis, Tim Henman, Wimbledon, photos, Jamie Murray

Back in January 2006 Garmin announced with a flourish that they would support the Mac. They made the announcement at Apple's Premier event, Macworld Expo. Since then we have seen one beta plugin for Motionbase and no sign of Training Centre. What has gone wrong? In the linked article above it is mentioned that less than 5% of visits to their site are from Mac users. What a surprise when they don't support them. Is this a sign they are backing out?

I bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 and it is a great GPS device. I bought it because of the promise that was made at Macworld. Garmin now say that the software will come out by the end of the year, but considering it was meant to be spring, who knows? Come on Garmin, how about a public beta. The Macintosh community is ready and willing to help. We know what running beta software means. Lets see it.