Liverpool MkII

Hooray. Hurrah!
We are now the proud owners of a TomTom GO 730 - 31 countries - UK and Ireland, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
As I sit here typing, it sits proudly beside me plugged into the PC receiving its first full charge.
When we set the defaults it does not present me with the option for 'home' in Australia, so Bracknell it is for the moment!

And although I will still use Earth Google to get an advance of our route wherever I can, and we can still use our beloved Atlas to navigate across the countries, this will no doubt come in very handy for finding our way to specific addresses - especially in the capital or large cities (on reflection I wish we had had it for Madrid!)

Very quiet day - Michael took a stroll to an ATM cos we had almost no sterling currency. He washed, I slept.

We are appalled that many intersections here do not have any pedestrian crossing facilities - even really major ones. We were waiting to turn right at this intersection (twice) and saw about 15 people take their lives into their hands to get across.

Tonight we went down to the local Cinema to see Angels and Demons. Again, we got lost en-route - thanks to the road being blocked and the diversion running into a massive industrial estate. Backtracked (twice) and we eventually found it. As soon as we had got our tickets for the 8 pm show (although we had left the apartment intending to go to the 6:15 pm show) we went into Currys, an electrical and electronics store where we picked up our latest 'baby' for £269. We could have bought cheaper versions, but this one has all the European countries loaded - so for the time being we will not need to purchase any add-ons.

Then it was across the road to Frankie & Benny's. Predictable but great food and we knew we could be through in the hour we had before the movie started. We started with a Mozzarella Cheese Garlic Pizza followed by:
Finest strip sirloin steak (served with a whole oven baked tomato, flat mushroom, spicy onion rings, coleslaw and herb potatoes) Michael. This was ordered rare as they "will not cook it blue" but luckily was delivered to the table very blue indeed!
New York Chicken (grilled fresh chicken breast topped with crispy bacon and Monterey Jack cheese, smothered in our famous BBQ sauce. Served with spicy onion rings, corn on the cob and herb potatoes) Maria

We also caught up by phone with Mick's sister Muriel who has invited us for dinner tomorrow night with them in Stoke-on-Trent, only an hour from Liverpool. We shall be able to put Tom (or Kate as the voice is named) to the test for the first time.

So then it was off to the movies. Angels and Demons was written before, and is the prequel to, The Da Vinci Code. We saw an interview with Ron Howard (director) and Tom Hanks on TV the other day where they talked about some of the challenges they had because they get no support from the Vatican for these movies. It was a little disappointing after the Da Vinci Code and at one point Michael even fell asleep (hmm, like mother, like son!!). But even though it did not quite have the bang of the Da Vinci Code, the Angels and Demons story is still thought provoking and the movie keeps the plot moving along. Funny though, I did pick up on one statement where I don't agree the church does enough. The head of the Swiss Guards challenges Prof. Robert Langdon (Hanks' character) with "My church ... feeds the poor. What does yours do?" Hmmm - shall we start a discussion on that note? Maybe we had better not!

Back to the unit without event. At least we could have plugged in Kate if we needed to!