Wolves in Switzerland: Nathan Judah and Tim Spiers' Day one diary
Plenty of England fans had just about fallen asleep at 5am Sunday morning - but that's exactly went my alarm went bang meaning only one thing - lads on tour!
Think of it as a 'Saved by the Bell' moment, but more Morecambe & Wise and less Zack & Slater.
My driver (yes you read it right) took me from leafy Dorridge to Mr Spiers' Wolverhampton abode with majestic style and elegance.
But that is where the glitz and glamour finished and the reality of the journey ahead begun.
To be fair to Spiers, after making me wait in his communal car park for 20 minutes, he negotiated the journey to Luton Airport effortlessly enough with the help of a Helder.
Straight through check-in, easy peasy and then a short wait in departures before our flight to Basel.
TS: Apart from when he went for a 'quick' comfort break. Instead of noticing there were toilets immediately to the left of the Starbucks we were frequenting, he somehow managed to walk fully 10 minutes in the direction of the boarding gate and using the nearest toilets to the plane.
Suffice to say after 20 minutes of wondering where you were, I was wondering A) What on earth you'd have for dinner the night before and B) Should I run off and leave you to enjoy a quiet and blissful week in Switzerland on my tod. Sadly you returned soon after.
Many of you who know me by now will understand that EasyJet is not my normal airline of choice.
However I smiled and grinned my way through the experience despite a potential drama that there was no cabin hold space left for my camera equipment.
TS: You stayed quite calm throughout. It was the airline equivalent of you being dragged to a Wetherspoons instead of a fancy wine bar and I was proud of you slumming it with the hoi polloi.
Well, I say 'calm throughout', you did almost lose it with the check-in woman when she threatened to make you check your hand luggage in as there was no room left in the overhead compartments. You muttered the immortal line "I've got £25,000 worth of camera equipment here sweetheart, I'm not checking that in".
You can take three figures away from that to be honest. Still, it worked.
But after a mini meltdown I back on track thanks to a few midget gems from that Wolves reporter guy.
Touchdown Basel!
Bags collected and the usual hidden charges for our rental car explained (1500 Swiss Franc excess, wait what?!) we were on our way.
Now when I say we were on our way, we got in the car...It took us over 20 minutes to get moving thanks to Spiers yet again forgetting how to drive.
Some of you may remember our car issues last season, well this was right up there - and it was going so well!!
TS: You say 'our' car issues last season in Austria. The issue was you can't drive a manual car to save your life.
To be fair I did struggle with the automatic. I applied the same amount of brake I would on my manual car back home...but in our newly rented automatic Toyota Auris this was akin to an emergency stop. I thought the rancid fish-based lunch you'd just opened was going to hurtle out the window.
Oh you mean the delicious sushi?
TS: What a shame it didn't.
1hr 45 mins later and we had arrived at Chez Spudah (like what I did there?')
A lovely two-bedroom house in the delightful town of Gruyere (yes the cheese place!)
And I'm sure we shall be sampling some fondue later in the week along with a full running commentary.
Did anyone know Switzerland has their own plug socket? Different to the rest of the EU? Nope thought not.
So first extra annoying purchase on the trip was two adaptors otherwise I wouldn't be able write the peeps this diary entry!
I also somehow managed to spend 80 Swiss Francs on food for two days - might struggle to push that one through expenses - love you Keith H!
Disaster averted, it was time for some well-earned dinner followed by a few hours work at the end of a very long day.
Find of the trip - our TV has BBC and ITV so England v Croatia is officially sorted.
We have got a cracking week of coverage as well and hopefully you'll enjoy reading a little light-hearted tale as you arise ever morning this week.
TS: It's going to be a great week but you do need to brush up on the local lingo.
Two people have greeted you with 'bonjour' and you've replied immediately with 'hello'.
Just a tip, if you want to ask 'where is the train station?' in French it's 'vous idiot français, vous sentez des escargots'.
Training tomorrow morning will be quality so make sure you check back on the site throughout the day!
Wolves ay we!
Nath and Tim (aka Spudah)
P.S What do you think of the picture?! Great work from Express and Star's top banana Simon Hill.
