This morning the change in the weather couldn’t have been more significant. The temperature must have dropped by 10 degrees at least. Here was my depressing view of my son’s football game this morning. Bleak:-

I have had a spectacularly good and a spectacularly bad week for various reasons. Can’t talk about all of it. Owing to my blog being under surveillance, it’s just not worth it.

STILL on a positive note I haven’t been decapitated for being a blogger – unlike the female blogger in Mexico who was writing anonymously about the drug wars…(touches wood, nervously).

Instead then, I will write about some of the bits in the middle that happened this week:-

Saw my son’s friend for the first time since he came back early from their inter-railing adventure of cheap beers in dangerous places. His scar is healing very well, which is a huge relief. Now I feel I can show you what he looked like immediately after being stitched up after the fight they got into in Krakov. Disappointing really that no doubt every single parent had taken it upon themselves to warn their man-child of every possible pitfall imaginable. This was presumably in the hope that by mentioning stabbings, muggings, drive-by shootings, drug dealers, prostitutes, becoming addicted to heroin and befriending serial killers they would become statistically less likely to happen. Silly me, I forgot to mention getting glassed in the face. But it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway – when on the brink of an adventure, most parents voices blur into a muffled white noise that teenagers drift in and out of consciousness during. This photograph, by the way is not for the faint hearted:-

So what else have I done this week?

Went to a sale of Trinny’s second hand clothes – but frankly couldn’t afford them even then – her old shoes were being sold off for approx £200! Still it was all going to a good cause so I hope she made a lot of money (I didn’t get a chance to talk to her about it in the end so don’t have much information apart from that it was for an addiction charity):-

Then we popped next door to visit a friend who owns a fabulous antique shop – he takes his dog to work with him and she clearly has delusions of grandeur as a result:-

Our cat:-

Daughter doing her art homework – one of those spray paint art pieces that required a straw. This was the only one she could find:-

On closer inspection it’s that hideous one my son brought back from his Ayia Napa holiday which I tried to hide:-

I’ve grown a new baby coffee plant!! Very excited. My big coffee plant grew some beans. Four to be precise. I didn’t know what to do with them? Roast them? Flame them in Sambucca? Sell them?

My mother suggested I plant them – hadn’t thought of that and look – little helmet head – very top heavy – how is it going to get out of that straight jacket I wonder:-

Didn’t go out last week at all – apart from on Friday night when a friend invited a few of us to go and see a recording of “That Sunday Night Show” which bizarrely is filmed on a Friday and they all pretend it’s Sunday. How ridiculous. You can’t have a weekly news round up only 5/7′s of the way through the week I don’t think. Richard Madeley KEPT making reference to the Sunday night thing which seemed entirely unnecessary. Alan Johnson, Jenny Eclair and Richard Madeley were the main guests with brief appearances from some mad trader and Robert Lindsay. It was good. Interesting to watch and amusing. I enjoyed it. They were all relaxed and having a laugh and I was surprised at their language and subject matter – it’s only a half hour show that took nearly two hours to film so I suspect that most of it will come out. Adrian Chiles, the presenter, amused me with his dry sense of humour, apologising at the beginning for all the “arsing about” that was likely to happen. Desperate to get to a pint of lager by the end. He did a pretty good job of involving all the guests, but should have stopped Richard from talking so much and let Jenny talk more. It was all worryingly sexist when the world’s largest knitting needles were handed straight to Jenny although she did come back with “I can do anything, I’m a woman” and when they tasted the camel icecream Alan Johnson described it as the “shit of the desert”. Better not tell you any more. I’m going to have to watch it now – listen out for a mobile phone that goes off for ages as my friend frantically tries to find her phone – picks up one only to realise it’s her blackberry and her friend had changed her personal ringtone to “The Charge of The Light Brigade”.

Yesterday I was meant to be meeting up with one of my best friends and her sister to find her an outfit for an important event coming up in her calender. Unbelievable really. Not just any event. She is quite possibly about to become the world’s most well known artist. She has been invited to do the next installation for the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. She’s in the Financial Times Magazine this weekend having been described by Simon Schama as “one of the greatest living British artists”. Spectacular. Anyway, it didn’t happen because she’s just too busy getting it all finished. Understandably. Good grief. Imagine her stress level at the moment.

Went to an AMAZING thing last night. Just at a friend’s house. I listened to some talented young artists singing their songs. I’m going to do a separate post on them when I’ve found their Youtube stuff.

I am immensely proud of of my youngest son this week for a number of different reasons. He’s definitely happier at school this year and playing lots of sport, standing up for himself when he needs to (and even me when required) and trying really hard to lose weight and although I’m not watching his football match this weekend, last weekend he had a cup game of football that finished at 1-1. They went into extra time and finally penalties. PENALTIES??? AT THEIR AGE. OMG. The parents were literally hyper-ventillating at the thought of their child missing their goal. One mother was actually crying. My son came on second (or maybe third) can’t remember. Anyway, cool as you like – HE SCORED!!!! WOOHHOOOOO…..and they won and you have never seen a more puffed up team at the end of it. My son grew a few more inches that day:-

He’s a little bigger than this now – which was his first weigh in at nearly 11lbs!! “Ouch” is the understatement of the year:-

He also made a brilliant cake which I’ve done a separate post about all in aid of the Royal British Legion and Remembrance Day.

Lastly – very strangely and a little worryingly because I think they must have made a mistake this email arrived the other day:

“We are delighted to advise that you have been nominated in the Travel Blogger of the Year award category. The next stage is to submit examples of Work that can be put before the Judging Panel. To view the criteria of this category and see also key information that you will need to submit an entry please click here. Just place the cursor over the award number and this will open the criteria for this category but please note other general information on that the screen page.

The British Travel Press Awards, created in 2009, is an exciting national awards programme to recognise excellence and achievement among travel writers/journalists, broadcasters and photographers with entries encouraged and welcomed from a wide range of travel writing disciplines including print, online and broadcast.

If you have any questions about the criteria or the British Travel Press Awards please let me know.

Good luck and we look forward to receiving your submission”.

I am very surprised. Definitely won’t get into the finalists list. But keeping a low profile on the whole matter thus far in the hope that they won’t notice their mistake.

Last Thursday, during a long and tedious evening for my youngest sons football presentation (well, I’m allowed to be jaded, I’ve sat through 13 years of them so far) I finally had a meeting with my ex husband to discuss his various issues. The blog being one of them.

So I can’t really tell you that he thinks my blog is “grubby” and “self indulgent” and full of “e-wank” (what IS that?). I can’t tell you that he told me it is entirely inappropriate to write about our children or that he thought the whole thing was dull and suburban and frankly a total waste of time and that his new wife thinks……well, he decided not to tell me what she thinks because it would only wind me up. He did say he’d only read it once and I suggested that perhaps he should read more, it might give him a different perspective on our situation, but he was most certainly not going to do that.

I can’t tell you which issues to do with our children I got blamed for or why he’s furious with Builder Bloke.

I came away feeling upset and deflated. There are lots and lots of wonderful things about our children that of course I am not given any credit for. It’s just a constant battering I seem to get every time we meet and I don’t frankly know why I bother to put myself through it.

It would also be inappropriate to tell you that I got a bit too drunk at my 18 year olds football presentation night in a pub on Friday (owing to a horrid experience at the dentist where I had so much anaesthetic I lost control of even my tongue for a number of hours, which meant I hadn’t eaten). Which meant that when I was asked to say a few words quite late in the evening on behalf of the parents I’m not sure I did the best job ever. All I was supposed to say was “Thank you on behalf of the parents” and I forgot that bit. Waffled on about all manner of other things. Can’t quite be sure what but I know that I talked about the incredible bond the boys had developed over the years and that they would, as a result no doubt be friends forever.

Neither can I tell you that my son, as Captain made a brilliantly funny speech and then, with the support of his trusty mate, took down his trousers to display shiny new tattoos with their football club name on their right butt cheeks. Honestly, should I be worried he’s got a tattooing addiction? NO space left on his bottom.

Neither can I tell you about the brush with police some of the boys had later and the cab journey I had to take at 1am to sort it all out.

Neither can I tell you about the argument I had with Builder Bloke.

Anyway. So what to talk about?

My youngest son’s award for Best Sportmanship? How proud was I:-

Or that this is what it’s all about sometimes, getting a little bit tipsy with your family and being there at important moments – so does it really matter that I’d had a bit too much to drink? I texted the father of one of the boys whose mother died a few years ago to tell him that he HAD to come to see him receive an award. He did. Shame I didn’t do the same for my sons father. He didn’t turn up. What a pity. He missed a brilliant evening:-

I

Can they now complete victory at the Nou Camp on 8 March after coming from a goal down at the Emirates? It does at least give them a chance to go to Barcelona with belief.

Didn’t they do well? They didn’t give up the whole time – even I, who knows nothing about football could see that this was a show of moral and physical courage from the underdogs that just shouted that message we should all remember – “never give up”.

My daughter made some typical girly observations that were nothing to do with the football:-

1. Messi’s hair

2. People in the crowd

3. Why Arsenal seemed to have so much connection to arse’s and when asked to explain further she said:-

Arse – anal

Arse -ne Wenger

Arse – shaving

She does have a point

“I don’t have an agent or a spin doctor. I don’t tweet or blog, and finding myself in the middle of something like this is most discomfiting. “I’ve never had a problem in my life saying sorry when I’m wrong. It was wrong. We were wrong, totally and utterly wrong.”

So I thought I’d pass his apology on because apparently his offer to make a public apology was refused. He says that “dark forces” were at work during an emotional apology for his part in the football sexism row that has cost him his job at Sky Sports. “I rang Sian on behalf of Andy and myself and made it an official apology, which she accepted. I expressed my disappointment that Andy and I, in misguidedly having a little fun, had got it wrong. It was wrong. She and I enjoyed some banter together and we left on very good terms. She was in very good spirits and I explained that I was misguided. There was no excuse for anybody to make any excuse for anyone. It was wrong”

While Keys was on air, Andy Gray, his fellow commentator who was sacked from his £1.7 million-a-year job yesterday, issued a statement in which he said he was “very sorry that certain comments made by me have caused offence”.

I am quite sure female linesman (lineswomen/linesperson?) expect a little bit of banter – football is inherently a very male sport and it’s going to take many more years to change opinion completely. Wouldn’t it be better to laugh it off and ensure they don’t do it again rather than sack them?

As Richard himself says: “Is football full of sportsmen who enjoy a little bit of lads’ mag humour? Yes, it is. But I don’t think football is inherently sexist.”

I have learnt over the last few years that it is quite satisfactory to cut out the middle man and buy yourself something you really want. It leaves no room for disappointment.

This year I have bought myself two things.

The first is twenty two sets of football kit to be sent out to Lusaka via an airline pilot for the Bank of Zambia’s two football teams and the other present I will show you tomorrow….

Off to teach now.

I have now been asked to provide football kit for several local teams in Lusaka. Which amounts to quite a lot of money. I will do some fundraising locally BUT does anybody know how to add a “Just Giving” or a “donate here” widget on to my blog so that I can enlist the help of the blogosphere? Just a pound here and there will help raise the £600 I need. I’ll write a bit more about the team another time, but for the moment I just need some help with putting the details on to my sidebar.

Thanks!

He wasn’t too disappointed which was good. The manager of his team is the father of one of the other boys in the team. This is fairly typical at this level – why else would you want to put so much time and effort in to a team? However, I am really not sure that “Manager’s Player of The Year” should have gone to his own son. There is no way I would have chosen my son if I was manager…or am I being unreasonable here?

Anyway, how sweet do my two boys trophy’s look together?

Here I am with a half hour window of opportunity before I have to go and get kids from 93 different locations, cook supper for 6 (book group girls coming over) and attend my 7 year old’s football presentation evening tonight (yawn). It is his first one (and about my 98th). He is so exited. Because his older brother is now playing in a cricket match we have invited one of his friends to come instead. I thought it would be simple. I was to pick him up en route and drive to venue because we wouldn’t have much time after all other activities. But no, we can’t do that. We have to come home first because apparently they have to “gel their hair”. “He doesn’t know how to do it” my 7 year old told me “and he really doesn’t like his hair at the moment so I said I’d do it for him”.

He is hoping to win an award tonight. I know that perhaps I should be more positive, but I’m just being realistic. He has high expectations because his older brother is an exceptionally good athlete and just this morning he pulled a splendid trophy (see below) out of his bag as he packed his bag for school “oh yeah, forgot to tell you I got Player of The Year award again”. He gets it every year. Without fail. It’s completely brilliant and I’m very proud of him. The problem is he makes it look too easy.

I can tell you that if I’d won that award it would have been a different matter. I’d have phoned my parents in France, called all my friends, insisted on photos, blogged about it…it would in fact have been my biggest achievement to date. I’ve never won a “Player of the Year” Award. It’s not fair.

I will be just as proud of my 7 year old if he doesn’t win any accolades, obviously. He tries his best and he too is a team player. I just hope that he won’t be too disappointed.