Summer’s Finally Here
The Great British Summer, it’s finally here. As I write this, I am sitting in the garden with an ice cold glass of lemonade, laptop on my lap and soaking all the rays that the sun can provide me with.
I am fortunate really, prior to this week I had only taken 1.5 days holiday and with co-workers taking next available dates for the next two months, if I hadn’t taken this week I wouldn’t have had a break until at least September.
With my time off I have been really productive. Not wanting to waste all of my time laying in bed or doing things indoors, I took the opportunity to completely rid the front flower bed of every living weed and awful looking plant. This required a shovel, a hand tool set purchase and a very hairy man sweating his little bum off for a good few hours. For some unknown reason, either the landlords or the people who built the house had decided to plant some god awful green and yellow leafy plants that had roots that borrowed from here to Saigon. Using a bit of brawn and creative nous, the shovel was used in such a way the plants stood no chance and the bed was ridden of all life quicker than I could have expected.
In my rush to get it done I never took a before picture but below is the finished article and my self imposed reward for doing so:
Between finishing the front and back gardens I have taken the time to enjoy the tennis, most notably Andy Murray, even if he is a bit of an arrogant Scottish twat.
Tomorrow Katie and I are going to head up to London and celebrate (albeit a little early) our first wedding anniversary. We aim to visit a few landmarks, enjoy some nice food and hopefully see a show (if Katie has her way probably Dirty Dancing) but I don’t mind, time spent in London with Katie is always a day well spent.
Last and by no means least, I am going to be getting my third tattoo inked onto me on Saturday before myself, Katie and a few friends jaunt into the night for a Masonary dinner and dance. The tattoo is Katie’s present to me and I have opted for a tribal type tattoo that encompasses my entire right upper arm and part of my chest. Should be painful!
Football on Five Meets AVG Antivirus
Last night I was watching the tail end of the Aston Villa UEFA Cup match when, for only five seconds or so, this appeared on the screen:
There must be some sort of Windows gubbins going on behind the broadcast, I wonder what caused it.
Croatia 1 – England 4
There’s a scoreline you never thought you would have seen judging on recent performances. Credit to the players, it was honestly the best performance from an England side that I have seen for probably two years.
In the build-up to this game, England were heavily criticised for their performance in Andorra, criticism that they probably deserved for not being able to inflict a crushing goal difference against a team that barely made it out of their own half (David James incidentally touched the ball six times the entire match). So as the players waited in the tunnel at the The Maksimir Stadium before the match, nobody would have argued with you if you felt the team would be torn apart by the apparent 5th best team in the world.
Walking in half way through the first half (I was having my hair cut short at the time), you could see that Capello had studied the Croatian style and suitably trained his players to take the heat to their opponents, stopping any flowing football dead in it’s tracks.
In my opinion, Theo Walcott seemed way off the pace and seemed a little overawed by the occasion at first, but with the rest of the England team feeding him the ball at every opportunity, he soon got his chance to repay the teams confidence. Receiving the ball on the edge of the eighteen yard box and taking a steadying touch, he lashed home the first of his three goals that night, justifying the reasons why he was picked ahead of the ageing David Beckham.
Wayne Rooney took the first forty five minutes to get into the game but in the second half, he didn’t stray too far from his striking counterpart, Emile Heskey, allowing him to feed off flick on’s and receive the ball to feet in dangerous areas, not 50 years away from goal.
I think what this performance showed was that there is one attribute that can take apart any world class team……..PACE.
With Walcott, Rooney, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole and even Emile Heskey able to cover the turf rapidly, the Croatians were forced into mistakes when pressed and on the back foot when England came forward. It shows that with a good tactician and a youthful squad with accomplished heads, you can beat any team, not just with an odd goal, you can truly take them apart.
The Goals
New Tottenham 08/09 Kit
Tottenham’s kits for the 2008/09 premiership season have been unveiled, sporting a more minimal design. The look for the kits is an improvement on last year I think, the black/brown/gold one looks particularly nice. I am still not a massive fan of the blue one, never will be I think.
Anyways, take a look:
Lonely :(
At 3am on Monday morning, Katie and her parents departed for Gran Canaria. It’s a new experience for me being so far away from Katie, especially as the biggest distance we used to be from each other in the past was say 8 miles, when we both lived with our parents and we had to drive to each other’s houses.
I have been a right old house husband, I have been feeding the fish, feeding the dog, cleaning the kitchen, loading and unloading dishwashers, things not massively new to me but weird when it’s you on your own.
Luckily, yesterday was a lovely day. Awaking early, doing the above mentioned processes and getting showered and ready, I drove over to my friend Luke’s house who was down at his parents for the weekend getting stuff to take back up to his flat in London. For an hour we consulted various friends as to what we could do for the day, the eventual winner being golf.
Meeting up with my other friend Bacon, the three of us hit the course with our various irons and putters, taking in the midday heat. Carding a round of 47, I came in the eventual winner four shots ahead of both Bacon and Luke, Tiger Woods has nothing on me (see below!):
Coming back for some dinner and to watch the football, we put our feet up and waited for dinner to digest before playing some Wii Fit and Wii Sports. We tried making some funny videos, I will upload them later and you can see what you think.
The thing was that after these guys had left, I was alone in this big old house with just the dog for company, it was very surreal. It really makes you thankful for the time you spend with the one you love because when they are not there, you feel like half a person.
The biggest annoyance since Katie left has been the dog, four times in the night he barked at what he thought was an intruder, I knew otherwise, the house is locked down tighter than Fort Knox.
One day down, thirteen more until she returns 
Oh To Be English
We win something, we are the greatest, we lose and we are hated for all eternity. This is the rollercoaster ride that is english sport.
After this weekend, we have something to be happy about. The English football team did what they should have done and won and easy fixture against a weak Estonian team. The big news however, was that the England rugby team against all odds defeated a much fancied French team to reach the Rugby World Cup Final, putting themselves in the unique position to be the first team to successfully retain their title. This albeit against the same South African team that beat them 36-0 earlier in the tournament.
Luckily I am in the position to profit from this occasion, I had staked £2 on England to win the World Cup just after their defeat to SA, when the odds were 50-1, so I stand to win £100, I just wish I had staked higher! I also had put £2 on SA at odds of 6-1, so I am able to win even if England lose!
Good luck to the boys, I will be watching the game with great anticipation!