the stench of defeat

So, last night we had a lovely treat given to us by the Victorians and Mother Nature – the drain outside our flat had backed up and was emitting a truly disgusting odour.

I was outside, and The Girl had wandered out to tell me something.

As she approached me, she suddenly stuck her hands over her nose and shouted “Ewwwwwwwww!!”

“I know”, I said “it’s the drains.”

“They STINK!!” she shouted.  Then she paused.  “A bit like the England football team.”

Out of the mouths of babes…

Bastards

world cup memories

Prepare for the depression...

I am not a football lover (although I have always had football-mad boyfriends), but I do begrudgingly get wrapped up in general World Cup/Euro fever whenever it occurs.  I say begrudgingly as it is obviously a double-edged sword – I love the feeling of expectation and togetherness that takes over England – something that gives as a common goal *groan* and gives everyone something to talk about to anyone they happen to meet/get stuck in a lift with/have a blind date with etc.  But, of course, England always loses matches and goes out of the World Cup, and the national depression that descends is almost unbearable – and that’s the part I hate, as I don’t invest enough emotion into it to feel it myself, I just get dragged down by the depression of all around me.

One of my most vivid World Cup’s for me was 1998 – I had just met The Girl’s dad in the May, but it wasn’t serious.  I was living with my gorgeous Aussie friend Michelle, and I had quite a few girlfriends living near me at the time – and we used to watch the matches as a group – drinking far too much at the same time, which was great fun.  i miss those days.

England’s very first match of the tournament was memorable for me too.  Mainly because I went to Menorca with my friend and her 2 year old daughter, and we flew out on that morning.  England was playing Tunisia.  My dad is Tunisian, and I was taking a small sadistic pleasure safe in the knowledge that England would trounce them.

We’d made sure that the hotel was going to be showing the game in the bar, and were really looking forward to going to watch it.  My mate’s mum worked on Walton pier at the time, and they’d been putting England t-shirts in one of those awful grab-machines, so she’d given us a couple.

We’d spent the afternoon in the pool and sunning ourselves, and then we went back to get ready for dinner and the match.  We were over-excited and jumping around our room getting changed, put our t-shirts on and started singing “It’s coming home, it’s coming home…..” and then just at the point where we shouted at the top of our lungs “THREE LIONS ON MY SHIRT!” I happened to look down at my t-shirt…and realised that OURS only had two lions.

We never lived the shame down.  But it still makes me laugh when I think about it now

I sent The Man out this morning to buy bunting (which ha has got) – mainly because ‘bunting’ is one of my Top 5 favourite words in the English language, and I don;t get much of a chance to use it.  So at least now I can tell people “I have bunting up in my window at home.”

He also bought The Girl an England football-style t-shirt from the market for the princely sum of one whole English pound.  only for the guy who sold it to him to turn round and say “It might go a bit funny in the sun”.   which was odd.  What’s it going to do?  Melt??  Slightly concerning, LOL

So, World Cup 2010 bring it on! I’m ready for you!  (But in a passive ‘good-reason-to-get-very-drunk-and-talk-to-strangers’ kind of way