Tuesday 17th June 2014

Sunday.

It will come as no surprise to learn that as a result of the jet lag and my screwed body clock, I was awake at five in the morning. I mean WIDE awake. I lay there, wondering whether I should try to go back to sleep, or give into the inevitable and get up, have a coffee and watch the rest of the England game that I taped the night before.

I put on my dressing gown, put some birdseed out so I could watch them birds in case the football failed to be interesting, made a pot of coffee and switched the TV on. We can say that England played OK, much better than any of the four games from the previous World Cup, however, despite being level at half time,they failed to build on this in the 2nd half, falling behind once again, and this time there was no way back. A 2-1 defeat against Italy isn't bad, but it a defeat, and means that the pressure is on for the remaining two group games.

Now, I had been told about some rare orchids (aren't they all?) along the coast in Sussex. I was tempted to go, but the weather was poor, cloudy and windy and so in the end we decided to have very relaxing day. Which I think was the right thing to do. I listened to the radio, watched some more football on TV. The day passed and I would have to go back to work on Monday.

The weekend drifted away, and so the week in which I made it to China also faded away. I tried to go to bed as soon as the eight o'clock game finished, lets hope I would sleep until six at least.