Thursday night and St Andrew's played host to European football for the first time in 50 years (not including the Anglo Italian Cup in the early 90s) and I was there along with nearly 28,000 other supporters to witness Blues cruise into the group stages of the Europa League.
A nervy start saw Nacional have the better of the play but after about 15 minutes the game settled down. This was due largely to a cracking goal by Nathan Redmond, 17 years old and already a crowd favourite.
The second goal came a few minutes later via Murphy's head. Blues were making it look easy! It was great to see us going forward and players actually queueing in the box to have a go. A massive contrast to last year!
The third and final goal came in the second half. Chris Wood wrapped it up for Blues in the 86th minute. I great evenings entertainment and all for a tenner. Can't be bad.
Friday and I missed the draw for the next round as I was at a family occasion over in Derbyshire. It was good to see cousins again after 20 years. Hopefully we'll stay in touch now.
We wandered around the lakes and through the woods for a good couple of hours and eventually found the Blackroot Bistro. Stopping here, we had a bite to eat. Clare ended up taking her bowl of chips back as there must have been half an inch of oil at the bottom and they were under cooked. It's a shame as it was nice sitting under a brolly with a hot drink and food as the rain came down.
We intended to do some bird spotting whilst there ad came away with a pretty average list although we did see a bird of prey which we were unable to identify. My gut instinct was Hen Harrier but I couldn't say for certain.
We arrived and as we approached the marsh we heard the distinctive call of Water Rail. Things were looking good. As it was we didn't see anything new but it was good to see hundreds of House Martins (and the odd Sand Martin) feeding over the river and lake.
Whilst looking at the lake we bumped into one of the volunteers who we'd seen a couple of times before. We got chatting and he was giving us handy hints and telling us the best places to see this or that. I asked him whether it was a Hen Harrier we had seen but he didn't think it was. He offered up no alternatives. We ended up walking over to Forge Mill Farm and sat around with a hot chocolate each, chatting. Eventually we went our own ways. Clare and I decided we would explore more of the valley. We walked around Swan Pool and up tracks and through woods eventually coming out on one of the two golf courses. Despite the map stating it was a public footpath it was at this point we turned around and headed back to The Reserve.
