Saturday 20th

Sitting outside this morning, I had my usual 8:30am time check with the pool pump starting up automatically. It then occurred to me that although there was nobody else around that it was actually quite noisy today.  The birds were making quite a racket chirping away incessantly, so much so, that they were drowning out the whirring sound of the pool pump! They must have been very excited to see the cloudless sky - a complete contrast to yesterday. This doesn't necessarily mean that we've escaped a storm today because the clouds can suddenly appear from nowhere.  Harrison isn't interested in the pool yet because he's currently doing something far more important to him:

It's qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix tomorrow. I'd better slow down reading my second book otherwise I'll have to watch the race tomorrow too!

Qualifying over and time for Bernard to check the weather reports! I suppose it's only natural seeing as the job he was about to start when I met him was as a meteorologist. The storm reports were for quite violent storms starting in the next two to three hours, so it was a quick change for everyone and into the pool.  This blog is becoming rather monotonous now, don't you think?!  We were tied to the villa for the time being anyway because Bernard had placed an Amazon order which was due to be delivered at some point today.

As expected the clouds had gathered and we were still in the pool when I felt the first few drops of rain.   It was well timed though, as the timer on the cooker went off at that point too - lunch was ready.

Today's Amazon delivery (there's another one due tomorrow) arrived just as I was serving lunch. That meant that we could now go out - in the thunderstorms 😆.

A couple of days ago, we'd come home to find a door hanger on our front door handle advising us of a realtor open house round the corner. We thought that it might be interesting to pop round and be nosey. It was supposed to be open from 11 - 3 and at half past two we jumped in the car (by now it was raining and thundering, so there was no way Harrison would walk!) for the one minute journey. The house looked completely deserted but I went to the door anyway. Everyone had gone. Good job we weren't seriously interested in buying it!

We decided to go to the tourist office to find out about tickets for Universal Studios/ Islands of Adventure. It was raining so hard by the time we got there, that I joined Harrison in putting on my raincoat.  We were the only people at the tourist office so Bernard parked in the space right outside the front door.  Despite this, we still got pretty wet running from the car to the office door. I realised that I hadn't come out in very appropriate shoes.  I was wearing flip flop type sandals which I had meant to change before we left home, but had got distracted and forgot.  I suppose that it probably didn't make much difference, as with the puddles and rain bouncing up off the roads and pavements, I'd have got wet feet whatever I had worn!  I did feel quite sorry for the thousands of people in the theme parks who definitely wouldn't be having the magical day that they'd envisaged.

We headed towards Kissimmee on the back roads to avoid the congestion on the I4. Even though we couldn't see any traffic flow problems at our junction, we knew that there would be soon after we joined the road. It was always the same, regardless of the time of day but obviously much worse during the rush hours. When you're not in a hurry to get anywhere, it's much more interesting to take the back roads and see a bit of 'real life' for the permanent residents of the area.

A few of the typical properties along our route. Such a contrast from the area in which we're staying.

Throughout the journey we were constantly driving in and out of heavy downpours but nothing that was concerning. We were used to this by now!

Our back roads eventually led us to the I192 and a shopping centre called 'The Loop'.  

This very much resembled the outside shopping centre at Lakeside where there is a huge collection of superstore style shops and fast food restaurants situated amongst large open air car parks.  I wanted to look in the craft shop, so Bernard parked and he and Harrison stayed in the car listening to the radio. We'd found a satellite 80's channel on our very first drive from the airport to the villa, and have since had it on every time we go out in the car.  If we've felt daring, we'd sometimes even change up to the 90's channel, just to see what was playing. Sadly though, we both feel more at home listening to the 80's music!

By the time I emerged from the craft shop (about 40 mins later 😁), Bernard was keen to tell me how dangerous the storms had become. The radio programme had been interrupted with constant warnings and the presenters were telling everybody in specific areas of the county to get indoors away from windows and unplug all electrical devices and appliances! They were also telling people driving to pull over and go into the nearest restaurant or shop and stay there.  I must have foreseen this advice and was quite willing to go back into the shop to ensure my safety, but decided I'd be safer by not suggesting it 😆. Harrison had already asked me whether there was a very long queue or just too much to look at!

As we really hadn't done much at all today and the weather was still bad, I thought that it might be nice for us all to sit in a restaurant and have a waffle on the way home.  We'd passed many 'Waffle House' signs, which had given me the idea.  None of us were impressed when we sat down at a table to look at the menu.  Calling themselves 'Waffle House' was a complete misdescription of their menu. The only waffle available was on the breakfast menu and everything else (including the way the restaurant was fitted out) reminded me of a cheap Whimpy / Little Chef.  Disappointed we left and headed to Walmart to buy some waffles to prepare ourselves at the villa.  This turned out to be a much better idea. Bernard and I had waffles topped with banana, maple syrup and 'squirty' cream and Harrison had vanilla and chocolate ice cream with giant chocolate buttons (which we'd bought from England).  We ate them whilst watching Ferris Beuler's Day Off on Netflix and listening to the Disney fireworks.