In the late evening before yesterday, I attended church which is now part of my early Saturday evening routine and several parishioners who I had not previously known came up to me to offer their condolences even though it is now ten full weeks since Meg died. At the conclusion of the service, there was a cloudburst so we all needed to huddle in the porch of the church until the worst of the rain had passed over and we could all make a dash for our cars. Once home, I prepared myself some chicken soup and then settled down to watch the France v. Germany in the Euro football competition. An extraordinary incident occurred about a third of the way through the first half in which a German defender pulled the hair of an opposing French player which resulted in an immediate red card (and subsequent sending off) and a penalty from which the French scored to make the score 1:0. But it sometimes happens in football that a sending off inspired a team to even greater efforts and so it proved today. The Germans equalised with a stunning header and from this point on, it was a tussle throughout the rest of the game. The French, despite being the favourite to take the championship. seem to have lost their belief and did not make many crosses into the penalty area and when they did, there did not seem to be a forward there to make the finishing touch. So, it was no surprise that the game ended at 1:1 even after extra time and then the game went to a penalty shootout. I had felt in my bones that this whole game was going to end in one way. The German goalkeeper made several incredible saves and when it came to the penalty shootout, one always favoured the Germans. They did hold their nerve and always seemed so much more assured and less nervous than the French when it came to taking the penalties and eventually missed only one of their spot kicks before emerging as winners 6:5. The French twice had the ball in the net only for the VAR to spot an offside using the computerised VAR system and thus the goals were disallowed. The French have now been eliminated from this stage of the competition more than any other team in the game’s history whilst the Germans go on to take on Spain in the semi-finals (the other semi-final being the UK versus Italy next Tuesday) So it is interesting that two of the semi-finalists, England and Germany. have made it to this stage of the competition despite it looking at one stage in their respective matches as though they were on the point of elimination. But, as the commentators are wont to say, it is often a case of fine margins that determine the eventual outcome of matches. The undoubted hero of yesterday was the lanky German goalkeeper who produced some stunning saves – and in her personal life she has twice survived cancer which adds a human twist to the whole story.
After I had exercised doing some Pilates routines and then breakfasted, I received a welcome phone from my University of Birmingham friend and we made a joint decision to go, as we did last week, to the local water sports facility based on a huge ex-gravel pit where we sit under cover enjoying a cup of coffee but still enjoy a stretch of open water upon which to gaze. We spent a certain amount of time discussing the attitudes of generations younger than ourselves both towards debt but also whether younger generations felt they had a right to possessions and a life style which, for those of us who are an older generation, we had to work a lifetime to achieve. I have to admit that this is the type of conversation in which only men over a certain age will tend to indulge but my friend and I do think quite alike on many issues. As soon as I was being dropped at home by my friend, upon his departure I was led into a conversation with a very long-standing friend of my next-door neighbour who just happened to be arriving at the same time. My next-door neighbour had informed her friend of my recent loss and as she had been widowed some ten years before, we swapped some stories upon our various coping strategies and this was quite an entertaining, and useful, little chat. Then when I got inside the house I read a text from the cousins that I am to visit tomorrow and was delighted to learn that another set of cousins (the two female members being sisters) were also staying in Cheltenham so we should have a jolly little gathering of Meg’s relatives who were present at her funeral but there is so much more than I want to convey to them. Tomorrow, I am going to take a long a laptop which I trust will give me access to a long video clip of Meg and myself giving some recollections to the Yorkshire branch of the family on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary (and before Meg’s ultimate illness finally took its toll) I also have quite a lot of interesting information about Meg’s childhood to share with the family because I suspect that they do not know very much of it. Finally, I am taking the opportunity to take some of Meg’s collection of jewellery along so that family members can retain a keep sake of her.
Although I have been in two minds about it, I think that I will after all attend the concert in our local church and I have permission from our Irish friends to park on their drive-way so that most of the journey will be by car. Our fellow parishioner who acted as a Eucharistic minister to us is going to be playing her cello on the improvised orchestra so I do feel I would like to go along and give her some support. I intend to take along a cushion as the hard wooden benches can be uncomfortable if the concert is a long one and it starts at 7.00pm in the evening. There is typically a little wine or coffee break in the middle of it in any event, or at least I trust so.