Wednesday 4th March 2020

Rest day. No phys.

Jools did her phys, I drank coffee and watched the sun come up out of the back of the house. These are the small miracles we miss most days, that the sun rises, the darkness is chased away, and then birds come and sing about their joy for the coming day, and that they will eat well. Certainly once I fill up their feeders.

I put on radio 6 on the i player and listen to the history of the Monkees once again as the program the previous night was so interesting.

I have a lazy breakfast, get dressed and then set up the office.

All ready to go.

Only work isn't quite to fluid and dynamic in the audit word as it is n operations. So I have found. But I am happy dealing with things in a thorough manner, so to satsfy people's questions and expectations.

Which is good, I believe.

Work has enough going on to keep me interested and motivated, with enough time for thinking.

I go out to fill the bird feeders, and blue tits and goldfinches sit in the hedge and squawk at me at how slow I am doing things and how hungry they are. But I get it done, so I could stand at the kitchen sink and watch the birds waiting in line to eat.

Outside the clouds and mist clear, and it is bright, almost sunny. Could I sneak off for a walk? I think so....

What with the Met Office telling us the first day of spring happened on Sunday, and that it wasn't raining or blowing a gale, I thought I'd go for a walk.

Not far, just up the road, along Hardy Road, though no one tried to kiss me.

Then along to the Pig's Copse and Fleet house before doubling back over the fields. I did walk among the dog walkers, so many it was almost crowded.

Sadly, I have the camera on shutter rather than aperture, so, shots don't have the DoF you'd expect.

But close enough to illustrate a blog.

Will try to do better next time.

I reach the pig's copse, and it seems there are pg in there, just out of sight. So I shrug, take a shot and walk back towards home where I know there is a hot brew just waiting to be made.

And with a day of rest, there is no later workout session to do, no shower to be taken, so I prepare dinner, or warm up the cottage pie I had made. Cottage pie is like shepherd's pie, but with beef. I had cut up the beef in small pieces, added some gravy then made mash with butter and smoked red Leicester all mashed in. It was rather good even if I say so myself, mixed in with the "grillin' beans" left over from our trip to Texas.

The I could concentrate on the football.

The FA Cup.

Spurs v Norwich.

It has been some years since Norwich won a cup game, and this season we won two in a row, away from home, so now had Spurs away, again, in that London. Though as a cup game, Norwich were given 9,000 tickets, though I didn't go as there was a chance I would have gone to north Wales, but that fell through, but not before the match tickets were all sold out.

The FA Cup has always been huge in City's history, with Norwich winning away at Liverpool in 1909, or close to that, then getting all the way to the semi-final in 1959, and in the process beating Manchester United, Sheffield United, Tottenham Hotspurs among others.

But never got to the final.

And this year the pain would be live on the BBC.

In HD.

Oh joys.

The first half hour was painful, with Spurs all over us, and they scored after quarter of an hour from a corner.

Bugger.

But then Norwich began to play, and Spurs under Jose tried to play out the 1-0 win. Norwich came close without convincing, but then scored somehow with a crambled goal some ten minutes from time. Spurs panicked, threw everything they had at Norwich, but the game ended 1-1. And so to injury time, with both teams out on their feet, it was a war of attrition.

So, the penalties.

But Norwich had a secret weapon: goalkeeper, Tim Krul, who has a reputation for physcing out penalty takers. And so it turned out.

Norwich went 1-0 down, then drew level.

Both scored.

The Krul saved one.

Norwich scored.

Krul saved another.

Norwich scored.

Then Krul saved another shot.

City went through.

Krul ran the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the 9,000 City fans. The fans went mad.

I screamed in delight.

I opened a new bottle of sloe gin and toasted out win.