The Trawl

There's one good thing about the football at the moment. The matches are in the morning so they're over and done with and you can get on with the rest of the day.

There's no time for pre match nerves. The kind of thing I suffer from.

So I viewed a 9am start with very mixed feelings. Upside was that I would be home for lunch. Downside was that I would have to get up early to wend my way to the venue.

When I set my alarm it was for 7.15am. Early early I thought. But not really because I get up half an hour before that to go to the swimmig pool during the week.

So in fact it was a lie-in. Lazy boy.

Perhaps that sluggishness was transmitted to the team. For here was an immensely winnable cup match against lower league opposition but as norma when 15 of our team turn up, we were useless.

Well it was one particularly bad formation which cost us two goals. I scored so that's the third of the season in four games. That's not a bad strike rate for a midfielder.

But they've all been face saving exercises adn have never come to put us in the lead. Maybe I should take a lead and go up front.

Maybe I should take a lead and be more up front.

I went home and said to the missus - same old story when they're 15 of us. She asked me if I'd made my observations known. I reminded her that this was the team that voted to stay in the second division so that people could turn up and play. The idea was to win but not at all costs.

Better to have 15 turning up and to lose on a Saturday morning than eight saps in the dressing room wondering why the others haven't bothered to come.

The Sexology

I'm not quite sure when it was bought but I got the Die Hard box set. It was called the Quadrology. And in it was eight odd hours of Brucie going bang crash wallop against a plethora of baddies.

I've had Star Wars Episodes IV, V and VI more or less since I've had a DVD player. Though I was never a great fan, I got the prequel epsiodes.

Trip to Burgundy last week was a joy of autumnal sunny flourishes and a trip to Chablis to stock up on me bottles.

For the children? The chronological rendition of Star Wars. It finished on the middle child's birthday back in Paris and the eldest has had her eureka moment at the end of episode three. "Oh now I know who Darth Vader," she cried out after Obi Wan had left his former pupil a severed mass in the lava of some volcano cum planet.

The middle child was just very sad that the cute little blond boy of Episode I had mutated into a bloodthirsty Sith lord.

The boy just did the Vader like breathing.

I have watched the first three that were made many times and it's the first time I've watched I-VI so rapidly. It was because of the children and it gave me a whole new realm of pleasure. The joy of sexology.

The Side Effects

Now this seems to be a throwback. Up at ridiculously early hour because of a wandering child. At least I have a DVD player to watch my favourite recuperative programmes.

It's 5am so it must be time for an episode of Star Trek. How can I stay awake while watching Kirk, Spock and the gang.


Maybe the child has nothing to do with it. It could be a side effect. The first pill has been taken - four more to go. There's an ointment to rub all over my gammy right hand. I am wondering how an ointment can help a hand.

The pills are supposed to be anti inflammatory but the pharmacist told me I had to take it in the middle of a meal otherwise there would be rumblings in my stomach.

I thought a gammy tummy to remedy a gammy hand. What kind of choice is that. And besides I can't take pills to stop pain. We have to get to the source.

So the radiogramme later on Friday and then the neurologue after the holidays.

I was a bit tearful earlier as my dad had to take lots of stuff which had horrible side effects like a gammy tummy. He spoke about the difficulty of it all. It made me sad to recall it. Still does.

But he was battling cancer and gammy legs. At the moment I'm fighting a dicky hand and a boy who does not be too keen to sleep.

He has a siesta at school which renders him buoyant of an evening. Perhaps when the siestas stop he will be more malleable and tired at night time.

Auxiliary controls as some characters would say on a 1960s sci-fi series.

The Course

The trip to the doctor was its ever drawn out self. The appointment was for 10.20am. But we've been going for years and we know that 10.20 means some time after 11.

This relaxed approach to the time vortex has knock-on effects.

I spent the prelude to the visit showing the middle child Sex Pistols videos on YouTube.

Then the big child came into the kitchen and we watched a few numbers from the Specials. By the time the boy came in we were onto Madness.

Apt really. Because that's what I thought had enveloped me when I sat at 1050 waiting for my 1020.

Exasperation hit at gone 11 when I realised that the trip down nostalgia lane had ramifications.

I had not taken my cheque book nor my health card.

Sat in the waiting room without the vital pieces. I declared my incompetence to the doctor immediately and said I would come back immediately after the appointment.

She said I'm not moving from the surgery.

The point of the visit is a gammy hand. I cannot grasp anything with my right hand.

Is it repetitive strain injury? Is it a trapped nerve?

Well I'm on the merry-go-round. Off for a radiogramme thang on Friday morning and then I'm seeing a neurologue in early November.

Following my visit to the cardiologue in September, I'm feeling very integrated.

As middle age and its attendant crises take a hold, I am going to try and see if I can pass off a mistress as a sexologue.

The Cafe

This is what we love. A quick entry while waiting for the eldest who's at her tennis lesson. I am recovering at a cafe after a hard day of administration. Methinks there should be more to a Tuesday than sorting out bank statements but actually no. I did my time in London and now I'm back in Paris the whole thing has to be sorted out. Such a shame I felt so ropey this morning. Must be the sheer joy of being with my family. Am literally going to make a splash later. It's children and parents at the swimming lesson. Perhaps that will help my gammy hand.

The Long Weekend

Good grief it doesn't seem that long ago that I was cycling along the Regent's Canal from Kings Cross to get to London Zoo. That was a pleasant journey. Marred only by the fact that I had to get off the bike and wheel it through Camden Lock market.

There didn't seem to be anywhere else to go. But once through that it was tranquil cycling. I thought it would be an interesting piece to write on the different buildings lining the canal.

the industrial buildings and then the canalside residential developments. Some of them obviously brushed aluminum interiors while others were clearly not so plush.

I would simply settle for the regency type extravaganzas near Regents Park.

They must be cheap nowadays.

The First Match 2009

Nice place Conflans st Honorine. There were tennis courts next to the football pitches and I felt more inclined to go and play tennis.

Well at least we got beaten on grass. That was a nice experience. They were better. But it still gets me when people start doing all that holding on stuff at corners. This is not professional football.

But clearly it makes people feel better.

One of their blokes kicked the ball away when it was our goal kick. It was a bizarre moment. They were 4-1 up with 10 or so minutes to go and he did that.

I can't get my head around that. And that's probably why we should be in division two rather than in division one with such idiots.