The evening before last was the semi-final of the Women’s Euro competition and the whole match turned out to be extraordinary. England were playing Italy and the English team team started well with a lot of possession and a slow but patient buildup but did not manage any really penetrating crosses. Then, as has happened so often with this England team, there was a quick breakaway by the opposing team and the Italians scored a goal very much against the run of play. From then on it was a tense first half and an even more tense second half in which, although the England team played with much more aggression and focus, it looked and more likely as the minutes ticked away that they were destined for defeat. Seven minutes of extra time had been added and in the fifth minute of the seven, a young English substitute scored an equalising goal. This was really ‘by the skin of your teeth’ stuff and so we were destined for extra time. It looked more and more as though we were destined for a penalty shootout but with only two minutes of the second half of extra time left, England were pressing hard but an Italian player bundled over an English player off the ball in the penalty area and the referee immediately awarded a penalty. Some questioned whether a penalty was too severe a punishment for the offence but if you flatten an opposing player in the penalty area, I suppose you have to expect this. The penalty was taken by Chloe Kelly, one of the substitutes but was saved. But acting with a lighting reflex, Kelly leapt upon the ball pushed out by the goalkeeper and scored what turned out to be the winner. So, it has been reflected that if this has had been a fantasy movie, one could not have made more a more amazing ending. The England women now have quite a tradition of scoring in the last minute of a game or even of extra time and I am sure that their opponents can scarcely believe what had happened when victory appeared to be literally seconds away from their grasp, only to see it snatched away from them. The rest of the day may be quite busy, not least trying to sort out why I am unable to access my online bank account is troublesome but I suspect there is a software fault somewhere. At half time in the football match yesterday, I went down in the car to access an ATM so I know my account is ‘there’ and properly functioning but I felt I needed to check it out for my own peace of mind. So well as sorting some tech issues this morning, I am due to go and have another session of physiotherapy this afternoon to help to keep my back in a better state of repair after years of lifting Meg off the floor and pushing her wheelchair up and down the Kidderminster Road. My domestic help told me that one of her friends who I do not know saw me yesterday walking down to collect my newspaper so I must surmise that with my Australian bush-style hat and in the past pushing Meg in her wheelchair I must have become quite a familiar sight in the town.
Gradually, throughout the morning, my various technological problems started to be solved. Firstly, getting onin to the phone to my bank helped to obtain the correct specialised ID number so that I can now access my account as I have been the habit of doing for the past few decades. It could be that removing Meg’s name from the joint account had unintended consequences but at least all is well that ends well so that is one worry less. Then I go onto BT to attempt to resolve the restoration of my previous phone number which was automatically replaced when we registered our handsets with the new router. After being passed through about three sets of hands I was informed that it could take up to 10 working days to resolve this issue. When I expressed dismay, the ten working days was shrunk to 5 and I was told it could be restored beforehand. Actually, it was restored within an hour and I got an email message informing me that the ‘upgrade’ to the service had been successfully completed. I tested it out my mobile and a spare Nokia reserve mobile and was reassured that the previous number had, in fact been restored. Then my son turned our attention to the non-performance of the voice component in the SatNav in the Mazda I have inherited. We discovered in the ‘Settings’ section that the volume component of the voiceover in the SatNav had been set to zero but how, we do not know unless it was accidentally done when the car was serviced. My son and I travelled down to Waitrose to pick up my newspaper and at the same time test the SatNav on the way back home and this is fortunately now working. Now we come to the final trauma of the day. Following receipt of the letter detailing Meg’s continuation pension, the advice was given to contact HMRC to resolve any tax issues. So I spent 15 minutes waiting to be put through to a section dealing with ‘Death’ only to be told they only dealt with notifications of the death of a taxpayer, not affairs relating to the tax affairs of the dead person so would I ring in again. This I did and the actual wait turned out to be 30 minutes rather than the advertised average of 20. Then I was told they could not discuss any figures over the phone so I pointed out that I had definitive figures in a letter, ‘No’, I was told I could not supply the information by message or by email (‘to avoid fraud’)so I was told I had to photocopy the letter and send it in to them by post. Scanning a two-page document was not as easy as might be thought so I had to make two jpg files and then use utility software to stitch them together and these I popped into an envelope and sent it off but I suspect that it may be left unopened and unread for weeks. After all of this, I went down to get one of my fortnightly physiotherapy treatments on my back (just a massage really) and upon returning home, did half an hour’s weeding as tomorrow is the day when the garden waste bins get emptied and I felt I needed to get rid of the worst of the unsightly weeds at the front of the house.