The House Husband

Today was as close to a perfect Sunday as you could hope to get. It started with a (sort of) sleep in for me and a nice one for Mirinda. After a lie in I popped up to Farnham while she rang her mum and dad. When I returned we settled down to some study before setting off for Caricola.

This is a cafe in Alresford. It serves delicious brunches – I particularly like the eggs Benedict on muffins with hollandaise sauce – and pretty good coffee. We promised ourselves this treat because Mirinda won’t be seeing me for a couple of weeks with Weasels Afloat drawing near. Afterwards we strolled down to the river for a walk along the path. It is idyllic! We saw a family of swans (7 cygnets!) standing then floating down the river, drawing admiring glances from the people who, like us, were wandering the shore like so many Georgians.

Swans in the river at Alresford

It was then off to an open garden in Farringdon. This is quite near where we used to live. In fact, we actually visited a whole slew of gardens here with Karen and Nigel quite a few years ago when the village opened most of their gardens for charity. The one we saw today (Berry Cottage) we hadn’t seen before.

It was lovely. Not too big but with lots of little rooms created by judicious planting of bushes and trees. They had the most beautiful yellow dahlias I’ve ever seen and lots of very tall phlox.

Berry Cottage garden

We had a good wander (it wasn’t very big) then popped across the road to the church.

All Saints church, Farringdon is rather cute and we figured that Jane probably visited as it’s not that far from her place. In the graveyard there’s an amazing old yew tree. The hollow inside is big enough to fit our third bedroom in!

The church is very plain inside – Mirinda reckons it looks like someone is halfway through decorating it – though light and pleasant.

All Saints Farringdon, Hampshire

We then hopped back aboard our haunted Sidney and drove home via the cottage (we haven’t seen it for a few years and, I’m glad to report, it’s still there) and spent the afternoon studying.

Sadly Chelsea lost the Charity Shield, which is now called the Community Shield, to Manchester United but I can ignore that.

Mirinda left for Bath today to start her two week residency. We had a morning of packing and checking and preparing maps. A lovely lunch while watching Dr Who and then she was gone. I’ll be seeing her on Friday, so, apart from no lunch on Wednesday, it’s just like any other week, really. Still, it’s further than she usually goes.

And today saw the final games of the Premiership. It was a close thing. Manchester United were only a point behind Chelsea who led at the start of the day. A win for Chelsea would see them lift the trophy as champions. Man U could only hope they faltered.

Man U did their bit for their fans and beat Stoke by 4-0 but it wasn’t nearly enough. Chelsea beat Wigan. It was 7-0 and Mirinda walked by a pub in Bath and a cheer went up. She texted me, asking if it had gone to 8-0. It had. The crowd went crazy. We are the champions.

Not only did we win the trophy but we also managed to score more goals in a season than anyone, ever. 103 goals. And our striker, Didier Drogba scored the most goals of all players, all year and wins the golden boot. He also scored a hat trick today. It’s a fantastic day to be a Chelsea fan. We now have the FA Cup next Saturday to win the double, something we’ve never managed.

But amid the jubilation, I have a complaint. I listened to the game on BBC 5 Live seeing as we don’t subscribe to Sky and they have the monopoly of premiership games and, clearly, there were no tickets to go to the game. I was sat back, cheering the boys on and suddenly, with about 20 minutes to go, the game was interrupted for a very important announcement.

Because we have a hung parliament, both big parties have been trying to work out some sort of coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats. The Tories were in a meeting with them today. It went on for seven hours. As the Tory spokesman, William Hague, emerged from the meeting he spoke to reporters waiting outside. And the BBC thought it the right thing to interrupt the game so Hague could tell us that nothing had been agreed and they’d be having another meeting.

Fair enough. That took about 30 seconds but then we had to hear a political analyst whitter on for a few minutes. Back to the game and I was not happy. How important could that have really been? An important interruption? Bollocks. Then as the match was grinding down to the end we were interrupted again because the Liberal Democrat had emerged from the meeting. It was really important that we hear what he had to say. Which was that they are going to have another meeting! And, naturally, the analyst had to return and tell us what that meant.

How ridiculous is that? A war, an assassination, the fall of the Berlin Wall, a big terrorist atrocity maybe ok to interrupt the game but to tell us there is going to be another meeting tomorrow because they didn’t agree anything today is just rubbish. I shall complain. This is as bad as the Dr Who episode two weeks ago when, just at the cliff-hanger climax happened, a small cartoon figure of Graham Norton trotted across the bottom of the screen during the Doctor’s final speech, to tell us about the next programme. This caused an uproar as the BBC was inundated by phone calls, text messages, emails, Twitter posts, etc. I think they had around 1500 complaints straight after Dr Who.

Who the hell decides these things? And why don’t they care about the viewers/listeners? Seethe, seethe!

Anyway, in the end, it’s all about Chelsea and their glorious win.

A few updates:

The Dead German
I have since found out that it costs £5,000 to send a body back to Germany if the person dies when away from home. The man concerned was visiting his daughter in England and on holiday. Clearly it would be cheaper to use the return half of one’s plane ticket. Not that anyone is saying they knew he was dead. They haven’t been to court yet. I still like the idea they thought he was asleep.

Joanne
Joanne is my cousin on my mum’s side. And yes, Heather took the photo. Joanne then made her take a photo of all three of us. But that was on their camera.

CRB Check
Yes, we have the same thing here when you have any interaction with children. It’s called a CRB Check. I had to have one when I volunteered to help primary school kids to read a few years ago. Because I’ll be ‘working’ in the back office and not coming into contact with any children, I didn’t need to have one for the Science Museum. I think they’re a great idea. When they work.

Aldershot
The game last night was terrible. The Shots lost 2-0 and fully deserved it. The other side was much hungrier and worked hard for the win. Not very entertaining for us. We actually left 5 minutes before full time, something we rarely do.

The fact that Chelsea won against Bolton more than made up for it though. It puts us 4 points clear at the top of the table with only four games to play. We only need to win three of these last games to be League champions! Ah, memories of 2006.

Nicktor
Nicktor didn’t stay last night. Dawn and the boys have been away in the New Forest (Remember that sign to Sandy Balls, Claire…well that’s where they’re staying!) and he had to clean up the mess he made constructing his Ikea bookcases in the ‘Good Room’. He was sad but resigned. He also spent a large part of the evening telling me about his bookcases. He even showed me photographs.

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Tonight I’m meeting Stevie for a few drinks and a huge catch-up. We haven’t seen each other since last December! He has since managed to pass his driving exam and is keen to drive me somewhere. I’ve missed him and I’m really looking forward to it. Seeing him as well as being driven.

Today we returned from a week on the Isle of Wight and the garden has gone mad. It has been sun, sun, sun! The grass is ready for its first mow of the year, and the tulips are starting to open.

Tomorrow I shall try and get some photographs on the site of our holiday. Though we are collecting the poodles tomorrow so they might just demand a bit of attention.

Oh and Chelsea beat Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final today.

Two weeks ago, Chelsea failed to beat a team well below them in the league table. This gave Man U the opportunity they needed to take the top position. A lot of Chelsea supporter were disheartened. Maybe next year we’ll win the league.

This weekend, Chelsea played Man U at Old Trafford. A tough call but, possibly, Chelsea’s last chance to win the league title. And they won! 2-1. Funnily enough, there were a few dodgy referee decisions, two of them resulting in goals. Naturally the Man U fans were braying for blood when a Drogba goal was scored from an offside position (and it was) but they were strangely silent when their goal was scored off the hand of their player.

Everything evens out. There was also two penalty appeals, one from either side. Both were turned down. Anyway, Chelsea played a much better game and deserved to win. So there.

I had my presentation today and it went very well. I managed a bit of sleep last night and the stench of beer and whisky was washed away with my morning shower…I hope. I was still changing the slides on the train into uni and agonising over the jokes.

Fortunately I went last, that way I could bounce off the previous presentations as well as present my own. I had a few laughs (tricky with a multi-cultural crowd) and, according to the lecturer, managed to explain everything very well. In fact, he has already emailed me my preliminary results and gave me an excellent.

I think it’s probably a bit unfair given my background but, hey, I don’t make the rules. I did enjoy it a lot. And made me think I’d rather enjoy being a lecturer. I have also come to the conclusion that charm and a positive outlook on life can get you a long way.

But I don’t want to go on about that. Being an actor I know my strengths (and weaknesses) and am arrogant enough to admit it. No, today I want to talk about spam. More accurately, the spam I get on this blog.

Every day I delete at least two spam posts. They are either for drugs or porn and probably always contain nasty viral links if someone was foolish enough to follow them. Fortunately I have set the blog to spam out anything that isn’t from a regular poster so no-one but me has to see them.

And I wonder why they bother. Though, really, I know why. It’s to make people follow them and either buy something dodgy or load a nasty thing onto their machine. Still, you’d think they’d give up. Though, again, I know it’s not human but a bit of software that just wanders the web and deposits it’s little evil presents where ever it can.

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Tonight I have the wonderful treat of having Chelsea v Inter Milan in the Champion’s League being telecast on terrestrial TV! Woo hoo! You’d better skip the rest of this self-indulgent post if you hate football.

Damn! Less than 3 minutes into the game and Inter score! Poor defending by us. Milito scored for them. Conversely, after 6 minutes, their defending is excellent so far.

The interesting thing about this game is the manager for Inter Milan. It is Jose Mourinho, who was the Chelsea manager who led us to lots of victories two years ago. He knows all of our players well, knows their skills. He also signed Drogba for Chelsea, who is becoming one of the best centre forwards in the world at the moment and can’t seem to stop scoring.

Ancelotti, our current manager is a very different type of manager but just as hungry to win. Let’s hope he’s really, really hungry because Mourinho is always famished.

It’s an exciting, physical battle so far. There has been a bit of a spate of yellow cards for both teams for the last ten minutes (23 minutes in). Apart from the goal, both teams are looking pretty even at the moment.

The Inter goalie has two black eyes. According to the commentator, he was in a car crash yesterday. He smashed his Lamborghini into a pole. He’s one tough guy, clearly. And his keeping is very good so far, keeping Chelsea scoreless.

Inter nearly scored again. It was harder to miss but miss he did and I can breathe again. Our only real chance came from a Drogba free kick and it hit the underside of the cross bar and bounced out.

Just before half time, we should have had a penalty but didn’t and so it’s still 1-0 as they leave the pitch after the first 45 minutes.

The second half has started where the first half ended: All full on. AND WE SCORE! five minutes into the second half. A nice little tap back by Ivanovic onto the boot of Kalou and he wallops it into the net. An important away goal for us.

And then, four minutes later, Inter scores again. 2-1. And the crowd goes crazy. They are making a wall of sound, according to the commentator. And they are loud. I can hear them from here…and they’re playing in Milan.

Damn. Our goalie just injured himself and is being substituted by our second string keeper, Hilario. It looks bad and could be a knee injury. If so, it’s not just a problem for tonight but for the rest of the season.

So close to another Chelsea goal. Brilliant build up. Sharp one touch passing. Excellent movement through the defence. Their goalie just managed to get in the way. More luck than anything else.

The Inter defence is still very strong. Each time we charge down into the final third of the pitch, they tackle and clear the ball. Very frustrating. They have one player, Lucio, who is winning them the game.

It’s still very spirited but the players are all slowing down after the intense combat. With five minutes to go, they all look ready to drop. The build up is still there but the finishing isn’t and it looks like tiredness.

In the final three minutes and they have all put on a last spurt. A corner with two minutes to go and Chelsea almost scores. And it’s all over. In three weeks, the return match will be at Stamford Bridge. Gripping game.

It’s odd how some days, nothing substantive happens. I mean I could ramble on about everything that did happen today but it would be tiny scattered bits and pieces and would not really flow as a narrative. For instance:

• Mirinda’s sister was going to ring this morning but didn’t.
• I went shopping up to Farnham and bought food for dinner.
• I had a coffee in Starbucks.
• A book, which I ordered the other day, arrived in the post this morning.
• We took the puppies for a long walk around the park, which they enjoyed.
• We had pork for tea.

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…and the list could so easily go on. Like I said, nothing substantive happened today. Apart from the fact that Chelsea beat Cardiff to go through to the next round of the FA Cup. And Aldershot beat Northampton 3-0! Ok, I’ll stop right there cause things just don’t get any better than that!

Oh, I took a couple of photos last Wednesday so I reckon this is a good time to put one up. It’s of Leadenhall market.

Leadenhall Market, London