It has been a traumatic afternoon. It has not quite equalled the overly emotional and absolutely draining evening in May 2005, when the mighty reds lifted their fifth European Cup (yes, that’s five!), but it has been an afternoon nonetheless of roller coaster emotions, intermittent outbursts of joy, mixed with more than a few exasperated gasps.
But, as with 2005, it all turned out fine in the end. I have no finger nails left, and as Louise attempted to talk to me during the final throes, I am probably going to find all my belongings on the lawn. Watching a high-profile Liverpool game and holding a civil conversation are two tasks that I find to be mutually exclusive. I become so engrossed and (as it is Liverpool) highly frustrated that I only have enough concentration for one thing at a time.
So a successful end to the weekend.
Last week flashed by for me. Week two of the new place, and amazingly I retain the thin veneer of credibility, and may even make it to my first pay-day. Louise’s week on the other hand experienced a whole different type of flash in the pan. An infection of an unmentionable organ that starts with b and rhymes with vowel has meant most of the week off work, and a pretty rotten time. Anyway, enough talking about someone else, let’s get back to more about me.
You may remember my bemoaning of my telephonic technology, having left my iPhone with all my angst, anger and bad memories of the old place. The Nokia E5 was just fit for purpose, barely, but the amount of times I had my finger hovering over the Order button for a shiny iPhone 4S was many. Anyway, last week I did order a new iPhone, but in a very unlikely act of generosity it wasn’t for me.
Emily’s contract had been up just before Christmas, but being destitute and unsure of employment plans, we had avoided the extra monthlies to get her onto an iPhone. Now, with literally minutes of stable employment under my belt, it seemed right and proper to do the decent thing. There you have the ultimate demonstration of unconditional love. I have two children enjoying and iPhone 4s whilst I have a handset that may be better employed propping up an uneven table.
But wait, all is not lost. Due to a long winding route, and some work we are doing with a popular fruit based phone company (alas, not THAT one) we have been sent some handsets to “test” with, and I have craftily nicked the best one, and adopted it as my own. So, the star of the most recent Blackberry adverts is now mine to trial for a very long time.
It is a Blackberry 9900 Bold, and for someone who in the past just could not get on with a Blackberry it is pretty nice to be honest, and certainly good enough to prevent me from blowing a chunk of change getting the other fruit based handset….for now!! Whatever drugs those at Apple are sneaking into the water, they appear to be working.
Going back to the start of the weekend, we spent Friday evening at the cinema. I spent most of the film laughing at the girls jumping out of their seats at regular intervals. You may have worked out that we were not watching The Muppets, but instead The Woman in Black. I thought it was OK, and the girls enjoyed it but Louise was a little disappointed that it wasn’t more scary. For a 12A I thought it punched above its weight scary wise, but Louise lives with me, so her scary thresholds have been set pretty high. Seeing me strut around the bedroom in my thong style underwear pretty much makes any attempts at fear Daniel Radcliffe can throw at her meaningless.
It did bring back memories of those Friday evenings in my childhood watching Hammer Horror films. As expected Emily did not sleep at all on Friday night, which is pretty much what happens after every scary film she sees. This makes you wonder why she enjoys watching them so much?
It may have been excitement rather than fear, as Saturday morning was all about One Direction. I do find it odd that Emily is obsessed with them, as they fall way outside her usual compass of musical taste, but obsess about them she does. By 8.45am, I was on the laptop with every known ticket website known to man open. Louise and the girls had a phone number each and were ready with the redial button.
By 8.55 I was refreshing all the sites to find most had already ground to a halt under the enormous traffic levels, but one seemed to be not only up, but selling tickets even though it was still pre 9am. As the girls got nowhere near getting through to anyone, I seemed to be moving effortlessly through the purchase process on Ticketline. Thinking it too good to be true I kept quiet until the magic confirmation appeared, and I declared the tickets secured before 9am had struck.
I was briefly elevated to hero status. It didn’t last of course. So the girls just have thirteen months to wait now to go and see them.
A bit of dog walking, tidying, a haircut and a film or two aside that’s been events in the Williams house. This is better than watching the news isn’t it??
Till the next time…..
Mkingdon's Blog 