For some reason, my body thought what I would really enjoy Friday night was cramp in almost every part of my body. Just as I was about to nod off, ow! my leg/ankle/knee/back etc. I think I finally fell asleep sometime around one but I was awake again at half four as Scully woke me up as I slept, and she insisted that the only place she would seep was between my legs.
This meant that I felt like shit all day Saturday. I mean really crap. I got up at a quarter to six to feed the cats and make a coffee. Outside the sun came up and rose into a clear blue sky. And as the forecast was for heavy rain by mid-morning, we went out for a walk.
We didn't go far, just to see the pigs and back. We could have worn our wellies, but it seemed that about an hour was enough. As we walked, we could see the clouds gathering in the west, and once home the clouds darkened all the more.
We saw no butterflies out this time, nor wasps! But the leaves are mostly still on the trees, and although the countryside may still be green, it is a dull mixture of green and brown. When the sun shines, it casts long shadows, but the light is golden, even at nine in the morning.
We head back home for more coffee, and I listen to the radio the rest of the morning. And edit pictures. On the way home we bought half a dozen eggs from one of our neighbours who keeps hens, and so we had cheese and onion omelette for lunch, which was rather yummy I have to say.
And so to the afternoon, where the temptation would be to snooze, and indeed I may have closed my eyes for a while, but I managed to stay awake during the football, and then at half five live through the torment of following Norwich playing West Ham via Twitter.
It is the modern way, I guess, and so I got regular updates. After a shaky first half in which The Hammers took a deserved lead, and the Carrow Road crowd were getting restless and booed the players off at half time.
The second half was a different matter; City won a penalty which Hooper dispatched at 100mph into the back of the net, and after that Norwich took command and scored two more goals to run out comfortable 3-1 winners.
Phew.
There's no denying there is still problems, but the league table looks so much better today than it did before yesterday's games.
Finally we watched a documentary on WWI, and the recovery of bodies found in a mass grave and identifying them. It was very well made and brought home the horror and futility of The Great War. Lets hop that for the next four years, we remember the massive loss of life on all sides rather than paint it as all rather glorious.
Dulce et Decorum est, and all that rubbish.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
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