In Georgia and Alabama, doing the usual: risking my life on a plane, taking part in a hunt, playing golf in a fashionable style and managing to lose in many english sports.

The obvious title: Sweet home Alabama

Alabama in a big state . At least it looks like it. Driving from Atlanta to the Enon Plantation , where we were guests of Cam Lanier (the III, to do some business and enjoy a nice break), was one of those trips that you can see in nice films like Jeepers Creepers . Simply, you don't want to stop and enjoy the company of the people living in between civilizations.

I'm sure they are all nice and harmless, but after years spent watching movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre , The Hills Have Eyes or Deliverance , my preconceptions grew to a point where they are just facts. You stop, you talk, someone will kill you and have you server as dinner for their small town of 50 (all related).

We arrived very late at the plantation, and the house where we (me, Guy, Rob and Johnny) were way to luxurious for my (again, low) standards.
A kitchen with free drinks available to the guests, a living room with books about hunting, large sofas and a fireplace (promptly started by Rob, who's quite good at it): just too good to be true.

At dinner I finally met Cam Sr, a man that really enjoys having guests who fill as good as possible within the limits (16.000 acres or so) of his plantation. Dinner was great and talking with him was a pleasure, especially listening to his and his friends' stories about the past 20-30 years of American history.

We spent the next morning filming a quails' hunt (with Cam as the Hunt Master with his friends)
I've never really been a great fun of hunting, probably because in my mind all I could think of were the butchers that you see in any documentary about endangered species.
Probably I would still feel weird about seeing a deer or a lion or Sasquatch getting killed, but birds? Quails after all are just stupid flying chickens.

I really enjoyed the preparation: getting the horses out, getting the dogs - two types: the pointers , seriously looking for traces of the birds, and the retrievers, happy cocker spaniels sniffing the land to find the dead quails -, the mules...

We spent the whole morning following the group having fun, talking and enjoying the time with their dogs. After few hours I could see some sort of fun in the activity (does it make me a bad man?)

After the hunt and another great lunch, we spent some time at

• Cam's private airport (where Guy showed us his stuntman inner skills by filming from incredibly dangerous positions),
• Cam's private lake (with that beautiful day, it was a great moment of hard work)
• Cam's private golf course.

The golf course. One of my wishes was always to play golf. Or at least to drive the golf carts, they've always seemed fun to do. In one afternoon, I managed to do both. Driving the carts was great, golf not so much. God, I would have never thought that hitting a ball with a club was such a hard task. Especially after everyone around me seemed to be a natural.
I managed to dig some holes in the nice ground and only after 1 hour I hit my first long range ball, in the wrong direction.
Balance of the 9 holes we played: 6 balls lost (one in the lake), par + [insert here a random number between my years and a cricket score], 5 deep holes in the grass (4 of them covered), 4 bunkers and 1 successful put (yeah!).
That experience completed my perfect score in English sports: embarrassing defeats in darts, snooker and golf.

We had a really great time and even if from what you're reading probably y'all thinking that it was just fun, we had some hard days and nights of work too. But because this is my personal website and I think that some stuff is somehow covered in NDA, I'd rather keep it this way.

On Wednesday we were back in Atlanta, staying (me and Guy) at Johnny and Liz's (thanks again for the lemonade! Great gift!), for a last round in local bars and pubs.

Everything was over way too soon, and after saying goodbye to Rob and Johnny, me and Guy were back in London on a sad morning, ready to start work the same day, because this is how we roll.

Guy went to the office, I stayed at home. I roll better.

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