I get told I got the biggest payrise I have ever received. Even bigger than when I passed my fitter’s course in the RAF. That I asked for this payrise means that I can take a considerable amount of satisfaction from this turn of events. In the short term we will see no real difference, other than we can pay off the debts we have built up this year just by surviving. Well, I say surviving, but of course we have done things, travelled to places. And we have a lovely new bathroom and a fine new garden wall.
In the long term it will mean being able to repair more of the house, save some money, buy a new camera and so on. And on. Jeez what responsibility!
We were already going out for dinner last night. Well, Weatherspoon’s annual Real Ale festival began, so we went to their new place in Deal, The Norman Wisdom, a typical Weatherpoons, but nice enough. Ale at two fifty a pint, and a good selection. And over the next two weeks there will be some 50 ales to try. We had dinner, I had three beers, including Shepherd Neame’s Spooky Ale, nice enough. Three is usually my limit as I have such a low capacity really, so we went home (Jools drove).
We sat down to watch the first couple of episodes of State of Play, which I bought on DVD at the weekend. Quite how I missed this wonderful series a decade ago is beyond me. Gripping stuff and so I guess we shall watch two more tonight.
Whilst we were watching TV, we had 5 badgers outside cleaning up the birdfood and fat balls.
And so ended a rather momentous day.
And in other news, on Tuesday, England qualified for the World Cup. Like at football.
I have been the harshest critic of the England team over the past few years, and of how they have been packing in, say: passion, skill, commitment. And so a week ago, all England had to do was win their last two games against Montenegro and Poland. England strolled to victory in the first game, so on Tuesday all they had to do was beat Poland.
Some 40 years ago, the same Polish team, well not the same team, different set of players, etc, stood between England and the world cup in West Germany, and as Brian Clough described, the goalkeeper was a 'clown with goalkeeping gloves'. History tells us that the clown kept a clean sheet and Poland won 1-0. That since then England have won all 5 of the games between the countries, it is still said they are our bogey side.
Really? Maybe they think that of us. Well, England played well, and although shaky at times, did more than enough to win. A 2-0 victory secured with a last minute goal from Stevie G. It does paper over the cracks, but we did qualify on top of the group, and conceded just the four goals. We're not one of the top seeds at the finals, but then I don't think we would claim to be.
I think the team did well enough when the pressure was on to cut them some slack, they did good. More than well enough to qualify. Lets see how they do next summer now....
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