Postcard from Sarasota- 19 December 2014 - 6 January 2015

A very good flight from Gatwick to Sarasota on Friday 19^th – they moved me into a first class seat which was great, even though they turned the whole of First into Club.  So all very comfortable.  Tampa airport worked well and I was in a Super Shuttle to Sarasota within an hour and a half of touch down.  Rather a long journey but arrived to a VIP reception, and wine plus tit bits in my room.  Lovely room with a great view.

 

The first day was glorious sunshine around 70F almost all day;  the next day was fine in the morning, but cloudy by lunchtime so I took myself for a walk around the town of Sarasota.  Monday was mostly sunny but there was a chill wind, which made the pool quite cool. There was a lot of cloud during the next few days, and not much sunshine!  Took myself off to St Armand’s Circle one afternoon, but rather too busy for me! Full of Christmas shoppers – and eaters!  Christmas Day was very quiet and not much sun.  On Saturday 27^th, there was the most glorious sunset which I could see in between the surrounding buildings, and on Sunday it was a beautiful day all day!

 

On Saturday night I was scammed.  I had a phone call at 1.15am telling me that there had been a systems failure and I needed to give him my account number again.  After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I put the phone down on him, not least because I had been in a deep sleep.  The phone rang again, but I ignored it, and reported it in to the Front Desk in the morning.  Apparently I was not alone.  Whatever will these people dream of next to get your bank details!

On Monday I spent the morning with my girlfriend, Mary, who lives half an hour away.  We visited the Ringling Museum, House and Circus Musuem – which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Afterwards we had a nice lunch together.  The next three days were very cloudy and dull, but I took a taxi ride into Siesta Key which should have been a beautiful beach with almost soft clay like sand, but it didn’t look very pretty in the miserable weather.  The sun eventually showed its face on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I finished up with a bit of tan on this very relaxing holiday.