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Mirinda headed off to Denmark this morning. There was time for a coffee together before she headed for the station to board the first of three trains to Copenhagen. Her trip was uneventful and she arrived in the Danish capital in the afternoon to rain. She had planned to visit the harbour but, given the weather, decided against it.
Tomorrow morning she’s meeting up with Lisa and Jack and, hopefully, will visit Rosenborg Castle after a morning coffee.
As for me, I spent the day mostly recovering from the early hours of this morning watching the football (see below). In fact, as soon as Mirinda left the house, I retired to bed for a couple of hours of much needed sleep. Not that it was enough.
I found myself involuntarily drifting off to Napland whenever I sat down. This was most frustrating during Reading Hour, particularly given I was returning to my five books rather than concentrating on finishing Goliath’s Curse.
I did some admin type work at the laptop but even then my eyes kept closing.
Eventually, I took the girls for a walk.
We have decided it would be a good idea to slowly increase Freya’s distance as she improves. Today she was very much like her old self, so I took her a bit further, up to the first level of the ski slope. I think she enjoyed it very much. She didn’t flag at all, sniffing and investigating and following close behind Emma most of the time.
Okay, the shaking is still there whenever she has been inactive for a while, something I am convinced is arthritis though, it’s important to remember that my years spent at veterinary school were completely non-existent.
Suffice it to say, she enjoyed herself and didn’t falter for the whole walk. Hopefully she’ll be okay tomorrow morning.
As you can see by the photo above, the day was glorious. It was also not too hot, unlike the UK which, according to Charles at FATN is making them swelt in the studio during recording sessions. So much so that he has recommended that the recording groups get reduced from three to one. Having spent many summer days in the studio myself, I can only agree with his assessment.
The only other major thing I did today was let Louise’s cat in and out of the house next door. Louise is on holiday and asked if we could give the cat daily food, freedom and nightly security. Mirinda was doing it but now it’s my turn.
The cat is very, very black. It was curled up on the sofa when I went over this morning. It opened its eyes and stared at me. I returned its stare. It was like peering into the dark gaze of a witch’s familiar. I let it out of the house and shivered like I had glimpsed the devil’s lair.
It was not as bad when I returned in the night to let her back into the house, something she happily did.
But, of course, there was also a very early game of football…
Nicoline can stop reading now
I was somewhat anxious when the England v Mexico game began. The crowd was very much pro-Mexico, the Azteca stadium loud with their cheers. It was almost as continuously loud as the vuvuzelas of the 2010 African World Cup. The awful noisemakers that I called silly buzzy trumpet things. The ones that were banned.
Still, what can you expect when 87,523 football fans start singing and screaming, and 87,000 of them are Mexican.
Anyway, the game was very exciting and full of drama. And I wound up enjoying it very much.
It was especially notable for the two goals scored by Bellingham, within 90 seconds. Given kick-off was at a delayed 3am, I was a bit snoozy but was quickly completely alert with his first goal and the second happened before I could drop off again.
The Mexican players got it together and scored not long afterwards before England was awarded a penalty in the second half, making the score 1-3. The Mexicans made it 2-3 before the final whistle declared that England were through to the quarter-finals for a game against Norway.
The Mexicans were on their way home. The one consolation was that they didn’t have far to go.
Then, tonight, there was the game between Spain and Portugal.
I was really looking forward to this clash. I like both teams, a ‘like’ that is tempered by my dislike of Ronaldo. I have said before how much his constant need to showboat and fall over at the slightest breeze created by an opposition player passing near him, annoys me. I feel a man of his natural football talent should be able to keep on his feet. Maybe he has some undiagnosed medical condition that forces him to buckle and fall.
Anyway, I was quite pleased that Ronaldo didn’t manage to come even close to scoring for Portugal. Actually, not many Portuguese players did. In fact it wasn’t until 91 minutes that anyone managed to get the ball into the net. And that was Spain.
I do have a question though: Why do the Spanish give the ball away so often? It’s super frustrating for a viewer so it must drive the players mad. It happened so often that it made me wonder whether the Spanish players were having difficulty discerning the red shirts of the Portuguese with their own white ones.
And so it ended, Spain going through and a downcast, almost sobbing Ronaldo (sad because he didn’t fall enough times to warrant a goal, I guess) leading his team off the pitch and home while the fans bore the sad painted faces of defeat.
The only thing to add is how wonderful it was getting to watch the football on the big TV rather than our small, UK one in the Football House. I felt like I was there. Almost.
