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Today, rather than take the girls along the track to the ski slope, I headed up the track and into the woods. I figured Freya would enjoy the change of scene and terrain. And I think she did. She kept up with us, a few times walking in front and, generally walking with her tail held high. This was in stark contrast to how she was when she woke up.
The thing is, I give her half a tiny pill every two days and the mornings after the days she doesn’t have half a tiny pill, she wakes up very slowly and is wobbly on her legs. Yesterday was a not a tiny pill day so this morning she was wobbly.
Still, she had her half a tiny pill at lunchtime today and started to get better so, when we went up into the woods, she was pretty much normal.
We only saw one other person, a woman picking blueberries.
The day was quite warm today so we stuck to shady paths and didn’t spend a lot of time sitting on the deck. Though, later in the day, when the sun had shifted to the front of the house, I did manage to sit outside for Reading Hour.
Speaking of which, I recently finished a couple of my five books and have started some new ones. One of them is Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America by Sarah Kendzior. I have only read the introduction, but already I’m engrossed. Kendzior writes really well and she refuses to pull any punches.
Already I feel like I want to read her other stuff as soon as I’ve finished this one.
It was published in 2020 so it’s about his first term rather than the awful second one. Maybe she’ll write a follow-up. She could call it No Need for Hiding, perhaps.
Speaking of King Odious, I heard a speech given by Bill Clinton today regarding the reflecting pool debacle. Here it is, in case of interest. It’s 26 minutes of everything that is wrong with the USA.
How on earth the American voting public can justify Trump’s actions re giving taxes to corporations just because they did him a favour, is beyond me. Let alone blaming ordinary citizens for things they didn’t do.
Anyway, that’s more than enough of that upsetting stuff. Well, apart from saying how disappointed I am with Harry Kane, the England striker who I was looking forward to watching play tonight. I saw a press conference where he said he played a round of golf with Trump a few years ago.
He justified it by saying “When the President of the United States invites you to play golf, what can you do?” You say no, I said to my laptop. Apart from having little pride in the company you keep, you will be seen as condoning his actions. When you are a public figure, you need to be careful with whom you associate. The stink of corruption will stick to you like leprosy. You may also lose a few fans.
Mind you, he went to Qatar for the last FIFA World Cup so he doesn’t really care about the company he keeps.
Anyway, that’s a nice little segue into the big Quarter Final tonight: England v Norway.
Nicoline can stop reading now
And what an exciting and evenly matched game it was. It was almost as if every action by one team was negated by the other in equal measure. It was electric, end to end stuff. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Possibly my favourite bit of the game was after Jude Bellingham scored for England just at the beginning of extra time. Thousands of fans (maybe tens of thousands) all erupted into a thunderous rendition of the Beatles’ song Hey Jude. It was a beautiful moment.
The weather was a big talking point in Miami today with predictions in the high 30’s. But that did not deter the Three Lions who valiantly cheered, jumped about and generally sweated for the cause.
There were attempts on goal at both ends, each attempt either skied or saved. It was all exciting enough to stop me dozing off as the time eased into tomorrow.
England scored first then Norway quickly equalised.
There was everything in the game but a sending off. A penalty was awarded then taken away when VAR determined that an England player had not been brought down in the box but, rather, he had wrapped his leg around that of a defender, bringing them both down.
It was a splendid use of technology which prevented, what would have been, a terrible injustice. The English player was blatantly looking for a penalty when he could easily have remained standing and attempted to score on his feet.
I should also mention that Harry Kane was almost responsible for the Norwegian goal. He fell over in the centre of the pitch, grasping his seemingly devastatingly crushed ankle while Norway took the ball forward and scored.
Who knows if Kane could have prevented the goal if he had somehow bravely remained on his feet but I’m sure his absence from the action could not have helped.
Anyway, with the score level, extra time was played and, as I said, Bellingham scored. The English fans went mad and the Norwegians were shocked into a stunned silence.
Shortly after the above photo was taken, the ref blew his whistle for full-time and I went to bed while Argentina and Switzerland warmed up for their quarter-final game. Argentina won and will now face England in the semi-final on Wednesday.
A great night’s football.
