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Polling Day

Pic of the week 26/5/19

It says something about the state of the nation when the Euro elections dominate the news, and make onto my pic of the week (although, in part, this because Sophie came home so she could take part in her first election.)

We won’t find out until later today/tomorrow morning what the result is, but it is looking likely that it will be cataclysmic for the Conservatives, and not good for Labour, either. Theresa May announced on Friday that she is standing down as PM.

Other news – half term began today, with typical caravan weather: a mix of grey skies with the odd the burst of sunshine, a stiff breeze and intermittent drizzle. A disappointing start after some nice weather of late, and not even enough rain to do the garden any good.

Anyway, good to have a week off – shall watch the final, final episode of Game of Thrones tonight, see Take That on Tuesday, hope to potter in the garden, snooze, exercise, read & listen to music (and watch plenty of Newsnight and listen to plenty of radio as the car crash that is British politics continues to unfold. When I first started watching Game of Thrones all those years ago I thought it was fantastic fantasy, now reality seems far more unbelievable and tragic than George R R Martin’s epic.)

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Fourth Official

Pic of the week 19/5/19

And so the season ends.

On arrival at Cheddar FC it soon became apparent that my role for the night was to reduce the average age and waistline of the officiating team.

I’ve never been a Fourth Official before and my extensive briefing on my appointment mainly centered around the use of the electronic board for subs and time keeping, and I was advised to arrive in plenty of time to familiarise myself with this magical bit of kit. However, it transpired that the board broke the night before and it looked like I would simply be a glorified ball boy, with little else to do than roll on a new ball when, inevitably, the one in use was fired high, wide and ugly into the Cheddar night.

And that was how it was, until after about 20 mins the ref missed an obvious stamp on a Huish player in their area. Player on the ground in pain, ball rolls to a Hutton attacker who scores to make it 1-0.

Cue the explosion from the Huish bench, so I don my blue UN Peackeeper beret and head over to calm them down.

Two minutes later, a crunching tackle on a Hutton defender has the other bench in high dudgeon and so the tone is set for the rest of my evening: scurrying and shuttling between two benches, calming & cajoling increasingly irate managers and subs. I did find some success when I pointed out that the ref couldn’t be biased as both sides were equally upset with him. Imagine, if you will, being a supply teacher looking after a class of angry year 11’s at one end of the corridor, and a class of belligerent year 9’s at the other.

As for the game, Jack’s best friend (the tattooed monster of Huish) was not playing and, to be fair, Huish were, on the whole, a good bunch.  Hutton had one player sent off (x 2 yellow cards for dissent) but emerged as 1-0 winners.

I’d like to say football was the winner, but I’d probably be lying.

Nevertheless, and I can’t explain why, I rather enjoyed the experience.

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Plain Vanilla

Pic of the week 12/5/19

Not a lot to report this week – a plain vanilla week: weather could have been better, but perked up today, and consequently I spent much of the day pottering in the garden.

Continued to take our dead branches from the “brown” (smoke?) tree, potted up some geraniums and lobellia, erected the runner bean support and planted some bean seeds. Trimmed the bush by the back door. Applied another dose of my vinegar & salt weedkiller concoction on the front gravel to try and keep the emerging weeds and grass at bay. The garden does seem to have more life to it now, its amazing how you get used to its dormant, winter state.

On Wednesday, Becky & I went to see the film “Fisherman’s Friends” at Strode: a bit of a Sunday evening series of a film (Becky accurately dubbed it The Cornish Durrells), was enjoyable enough, but shan’t be rushing to watch it on video, but it was good to go out mid-week: a treat!

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Race Day!

Pic of the week 5/5/19

Today was race day – Glastonbury 10K.

Cool (verging on cold), little or no wind, mix of sun and cloud.

Pleased with my run, still awaiting official “chip time”, but my wristwatch time was 47 mins 43 secs. My “phone time” was 46:34, but this called the 10K early by about 100 to 200 yards so an extra minute on that time would be about right.

Update: Official chip time 47 min 30 sec

Position 141 out of of 566 runners, 14 out of 46 Male 50 – 55 category

Enjoyed the race, enjoyed the event, pleased to achieved (smashed!) my fewer minutes than age in years challenge.

Have just looked back through some old logs for 10K times:

Sep 2005 S Mallet: 50.52

April 2006 Longleat 53.32

October 2007 Longleat 52.43

Oct 2009 S Mallett 55.53

Oct 2009 Longleat 57.20

May 2010 Wells 57.28

So a p.b by some margin!

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JTQ

Pic (vid!) of the week 29/4/19

By chance, on Friday, I picked up a copy of the local paper.

By chance I happened on a small ad detailing upcoming events at Strode Theatre.

Sunday night – James Taylor Quartet.

I couldn’t really believe it. A quick check showed tickets still available (plenty of them!)

Its rare that I disagree with Becky, but she describes JTQ as “elevator” music. She is wrong, so wrong. But it meant I was going alone.

One ticket for twenty quid – a bargain!

Parking up and walking to the venue, I did wonder if there was another event happening at the same time – a cinema screening, perhaps – because those walking towards the entrance did not strike me as the demographic of a typical JTQ fan.

They were a bit niche back in the day (only the coolest of us cool cats were into them) so I was surprised to find them in a sleepy Somerset town on a Sunday night.

Half an hour, the couple behind me left.

The lady in front of me sat with her hands over her ears for the whole two hour set.

But they were brilliant. Foot stompingly brilliant.