D Day in Cardiff

Arose this morning feeling that it is going to be a good day. After breakfast wandered down to City Centre around Cardiff Castle and the Millennium Stadium. The whole inner city area only pedestrian so it was good to see all the people milling around taking in the atmosphere. You will have seen the Rugby Ball which is mounted on the wall of Cardiff Castle - certainly a photo stop for everyone. I saw on the news this morning the suggestion that they might leave the Rugby Ball up after the end of the World Cup. Clare is arriving today from Manchester. Her train is due in at 1 pm and the plan is then to walk down to the Fan Zone where there is a Kiwi Bar with big screens so we can watch the first match there. I assume after that we will look for something to eat before heading to the Millennium Stadium for our encounter with the French. There are lots of French supporters around many dressed up as Chickens - they certainly add colour and fun to the streets. Thought I would start this blog before the business end of the day begins and hopefully I will finish it when I arrive back at the hotel sometime tonight. Sorry about sending a text to Wendy and Annette last night but I thought you would have liked to know that I might make TV One news. Sounds from the comments that quite a few of you saw it. I hope I did you proud. Hugh I sent off an invitation to Alister. I did send him a Facebook invitation earlier but forgot to add him to the Blog. Just arrived home from the Game and what a game it was. Clare arrived at the hotel around 1:20 and it was our plan to go and get a bite of lunch then head off to the Fan Zone at Cardiff Arms Park. Eventually found a bite to eat and ended up in a cafe with a big screen. We thought it was tempting to just stay in the cafe and watch the South Africa/Wales game but decided we should get into the atmosphere of quarter final weekend so headed off the Fan Zone which was in Cardiff Arms Park. Before we even got there there were world cup volunteers announcing that the Fan Zone was fill and closed - 10000 people inside. Decided we should head back to the hotel and watch it on the TV in my room. I though the Welsh team just ran out of gas at the end as they did have the upper hand for most of the match. Set off at the end of that match to find some tea and then go off to the match. We had two hours to do that but we were at the stadium but still had not found any place we could get into. Most were booked out until 1 am! Plenty of places to stand on the street and drink beer which wasn't really our cup of tea. Decided to go into the stadium in the hope there would be some food inside. There was but nothing to write home about. I had a hot dog which was a warm saveloy inside a cold bun and clear had some sort of pastie which she described as non nondescript. When we did get to the stadium both teams were on the field going through their warm up routines. We had great seats and saw really well only had to revert to the TV screens when the ball was lost in one of the very few scrums of the game. The agility of the All Blacks was amazing and Clare says that 'forwards shouldnt be able to run as fast the AB forwards did'. By the time I got back to the hotel the post match analysis was over so I am hoping there might be something on the late news in about 20 minutes. Our match tomorrow is at 4 pm so Clare and I are just going to meet up in the stadium. She is staying with friends in Newport so she can have some time with them before she comes into the match. Head is catching a train back to Manchester after the match so I think it will be quite late by the time she hits Manchester.