The evening before last, I met with my American friend as we have an arrangement where we meet in the nearby park and do a couple of circuits of walking for the good of our health – as well as having a chat, of course, and informing each other of the day’s news. Fortunately, there are a couple of benches placed at strategic intervals and if either of us feels out of puff then we can avail ourselves of a little sit-down. This late afternoon routine (we meet at 5.00pm) is actually good for both of us because the weather is generally fine by then and the day’s business has largely been conducted – of course, we are surrounded by a plethora of dogs and their owners but we have a chat with them. My friend’s opening gambit is always to tell owners what a magnificent pooch they have which always makes them want to stop and chat. Then it was a case of coming home, having a light tea and thinking about the forthcoming opening match between England and Croatia. The first half was a little scrappy, but England went ahead by a penalty, the Croatians equalised by unstoppable volley from outside the penalty area, England scored a second goal and seemed to be cruising before half time. But then the English defence switched off for a moment, and the Croatians scored an equalising second goal ten seconds before the end of the extra time of the first half. The English manager evidently read the riot act to the England team (a bit like the French manager had done in a previous game) and England came out like a team possessed and restored their lead with a third goal very early in the second half with a magnificent solo run and shot by the winger Jude Bellingham and from then on, an English victory always seemed to be the most likely outcome. the England forward line looked magnificent, but the defence is a little shaky and one wonders how they would fare against an opponent such as France and Mbappe. In my youth, I followed the fortunes of Leeds United who were an effective but never a pretty team to watch. But the Leeds United half back line was considered to be the finest in the country – in the centre was big Jack Charlton (the brother of Bobby Charlton), the terrier-like Billy Bremner who chased every opponent relentlessly and the incredibly agile and skilful Johnny Giles. The rumour amongst the Leeds fans was that these three had great doubts about the ability of the then Leeds goalkeeper, Gareth Sprake who actually played for Wales, and so as a half back line , they were absolutely determined never to let a ball get anywhere near Sprake. I think we could do with a bit more like that at the moment as the English defence seem to be relying on a lot of passes back to the goalkeeper – and far too many in my opinion. I have quite a busy day in prospect today but with a day out to Solihull at the end of the week to which I am looking forward.
When I returned home from my weekly Tai Chi session and general chitchat at the Methodist Centre, I was delighted to see that my son’s car was on the drive as he had arrived whilst I was out. We had quite a lot of news to exchange with each other as I had not seen him and his wife for about ten days whilst they down visiting the in-laws in Watford. I needed to have a fairly quick turn around because I was conscious of the fact that I needed to attend a meeting of the U3A Classical Music Appreciation group at a member’s house. I had not visited this member’s house before but the street name was given as ‘New Road’ of which there happen to be two in Bromsgrove. Now my nightmare afternoon started because although my son had looked up one of the ‘New Roads’ the SatNav directed me to a nearer one which matched the address I had been given and was on my mobile phone.So having got the correct house number about 15 minutes before the meeting was due to start, I waited and waited but nobody turned up. The house was evidently locked and nobody turned up so I assumed that I had been the recipient of ‘duff’ information and thought I would make my way to the other ‘other’ ‘New Road’ Once I got there, the relevant address was a main road with a yellow line outside and nowhere to park and, to make matters worse there was no house with the exact number that had been given but only two houses with an ‘a’ and ‘b’ suffix so I assumed that this too was incorrect. So I made my way back to the first of the ‘New Roads’ and confirmed that the house was locked, nobody was answering the door and there were no visitor’s cars parked I the vicinity. Needless to say, I kept checking and then re-checking my phone, as well as my SatNav to ensure that I had not made a stupid error with the address, time or date. I am sure that Amazon delivery drivers must have this happening to them all of the time but it was one of those occasions when the SatNav appeared to have worked but I was not at the right place at the right time. So I had spent over an hour checking out these two addresses and despite text messages and at attempted phone call, I got absolutely nowhere so I came home to a well-deserved cup of tea. Although my phone has been silent during the afternoon, I thought after a bit of a rest I would cut the back lawn do that could salvage something from the abortive afternoon. In the evening, an exit poll indicating the result of the tremendously important Makerfield by election may be announced when the polls have closed but I suspect that the actual result will not be available until the wee small hours of the morning and I think I would prefer my beauty sleep as the implications of the by-election, whatever the result, will consume the entire bandwidth of the media outlets tomorrow. My American friend and I exchanged a quick conversation in the late afternoon as we had both experienced a frustrating time with appointments falling over for no fault of our own.