Written in the stars.....

Hello to everyone once again, my second post in 3 days. I thought I'd start of by saying that we watched the Arsenal game today and what a game it was! 7-1 to the Arsenal with a Van Persie hat trick, double strik from Chamberlain, a nice goal by Arteta and to top it off the legend that is Thierry Henry came on to grab a late goal! Because my blog name was inspired from the Tinie Tempah song Miami2Ibiza I thought it was only right to have the title as Written in the stars as it clearly was written in the stars that Henry would make his come back to come off the bench and score the winning goal against Leeds in the cup in true Henry style and then to come off the bench today to end a great day with a link up with Robin Van Persie and score his first Premier League goal in 5 years.

So back to how this great Saturday started. We left the house at around midday in excellent weather, 22 degrees sun and decided to go to the Bahai Gardens in Akko as we thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Bahai Gardens in Haifa. It was about a 40 minute walk from the house past Bustan Hagalil where we do our disability session every Tuesday, It was quite a nice walk as it's more out in the countryside. The Gardens were alot bigger than Haifa but more flat, all in all still a very well kept and impressive place. No tour guide here so it worked out well that we went to the one in Haifa first where we had a guide and managed to learn about the Bahai's before visiting the one in Akko.

The road leading out of Akko towards the Bahai Gardens

One of the entrances to the Gardens that was closed

Me at the start of the gardens



After we walked down to the old town in Akko along the sea front where we were meant to meet Sameh and Yakov but in good Israel fasion they were about 30 minutes late. But then they took us to the betting shop/cafe type place where we watched the football. It was an arabic place and when I say betting shop its nothing like at home, you can sit down order food and drink and it was in an old building so the tv was on the wall but all around and inside is the old brickwork. As I said already a great game 7-1 to the Arsenal! After the football we went to get a Schnitzel baguette and sat on the wall by the sea looking out to Haifa which reminds me of back home as its like being down Bournemouth beach looking out to the Isle of Wight. Then we went back down the market and bought an Arabic sweet, not sure on the name but it sounded something like canaffe, it was once again very good, afterwards Sameh and his friend showed us inside the Mosque in Akko before walking home to burn off some of all the food we ate!

Denys, Sameh and his friend

Sunday morning soon came round which meant the start of a new week in Israel. Woke up to another day of lovely sunshine outside the window yet also to lots of photos and news from family and friends about the snow fall in the night back home. Denys wasn't feeling too good in the morning and had been up most of the night so decided to stay at home. I took off to walk to Rambam school with a bag of footballs, bibs and cones in the warm sunshine. When at the school I decided to do heading and volleying in pairs changing round every few times with plenty of progressions, the sessions went well and we played games at the end for around 10 minutes. When I got home it was such a nice day outside I decided to take a walk down near the sea and get some photo's rather than stay inside. I met Yossi on my way to the sea and we walked along most of the sea front taking various pictures. Here are todays blog selections:

Me on the wall

After the town I rode back home on Yossi's bike as he wanted to run and we got back and saw Denys before all heading to the friendship house for 16:30 (Denys is now back to normal). We did a session with a circle and passing then following your pass, then onto dribbling before adding in various progression like one two, overlaps etc. Then we got into a game where we joined in and had fun, my friend who calls me evil Van Persie was also there again and we had a good laugh and talked about the Chelsea vs Manchester United game that was on tonight. When we got home we went up to Zippee's to watch the football, another good match Chelsea going 3-0 up then United coming back to level things up at 3-3 which isn't a bad result for us aiming to achieve a top 4 finish. After the match we had another dinner at Zippee's house with the Italians and an American woman, all of which are leaving in the next week. We found out that Zippee was once an undercover police officer for 3-4 years, a party trick how to get a cork out of an empty wine bottle and that Tupac is jewish. Well Tupac is not jewish but when our American friend made a 'W' sign with her hand and asked if we knew what it was me and Denys immediately said westsiiiide! Turned out she was talking about Spok being Jewish and the sign he used to do but me and Denys mentioned Tupac and immediately she said he was jewish... Made us all laugh and joke, probably one of those things when you had to be there in the moment. Once again though it was a good meal all sitting around the table having a good laugh and sharing stories.

I have also this week signed up to do the Be a Gunner Be a Runner fun run for charity, 10 laps around the Emirates Stadium and all money raised goes to save the children foundation. I arrive back in the UK on the 23rd March and will be running on the 31st March. I am sure that some of my fellow coaches will still be abroad and will be organising a similar run in their countries.