Sunday 18th November 2018

Somehow, with two gigs, 6 churches, a railtour and a pub lunch, the weekend seemed twice as long, and waking up on Sunday morning we realised there was another whole day of it left.

We slept until half seven, but there was no football to watch, meaning we lazed around, made bacon butties and ate them, before clearing up and beginning a start on the remaining work in the garden. In particular, the small rain forest on the side of the drive which was making it next to impossible to get the car down.

Clumping bamboo sounds fine, but it very much at home by the gateway, and shoots out in all directions. I start by pruning the main stems, then cutting with shears the fresh growth.

There was holly mixed in too, that was cut, as was the buddleia, which was more treelike.

But after an hour and a half, the majority of the work was done, leaving the stone garden to do in the afternoon.

I made insalata for lunch, then back outside to begin to collect the blue slate chips and put them into buckets, so we can take up the weed retarding membrane and put some manure down for the acers, before putting fresh membrane down and clean the chips before finishing.

Odd thing is, that was I began to collect up the slate chips, I found lots of soil too, which should have been impossible, but then years of birdseed, rotted down and consumed by worms makes nice composted soil. But will take twice as long to get the job done.

After 90 minutes I was out of buckets, and less than halfway through getting all the chips up. More to do next weekend.

That (half) done, there was football to listen to. Now, EUFA decided to come up some competition to replace half the friendly matches that take part, and have seedings and groups which meant similar standard teams played each other. And England were in one of the top groups, and needed a win against Croatia, who knocked them out of the world cup, to make it to the semi-finals next summer.

I can't claim to understand it, but it has meant lots of high status games the past two international windows, and England beating Spain. In Spain.

It was almost a full Wembley, and fans expecting. But despite creating lots of chances, England went behind just halfter the break, and things looked grim, but in the last ten minutes, England pulled level, then Kane scored what turned out to be the winner, so in a matter of minutes went for being relegated to the next group down to being in the showcase emsis next summer.

Wembley exploded with joy.

Yay.

Outside, darkness fell, and turned out we were not that hungry, so made do with cheese and crackers whilst listening to Tracy Thorn on Desert Island Discs, which was nice.

But the weekend was coming to an end, washing to be done, Jools did the ironing, and by nine we were pooped. Again.