Fever Pitch

 At the beginning of this week the build up to the semi finals of the World Cup was palpable. The aqua-fit group at the swimming pool waved their arms and wiggled their legs to a medley of football songs, possibly as a practise for watching a game or two on TV. Football fever had touched the least likely demographic - older women like me. From the sound and the volume I could tell they knew all the words, "Na, na, na..." In the shops, cases of beer were discounted to encourage World Cup drinking at home - everything snack-like was labelled as a must-have for football watching. Product positioning went into overdrive this week.

I watched the Argentine versus England match without the suggested necessities  from Tesco - the match was more bar brawl than football and poorly reffed. I thought England played with guts and dignity. I certainly don't enjoy the pundits giving their six-penneth and scapegoating the manager after every match. We all make mistakes so throwing the baby out with the bath water is a poor state of affairs that happens far too often these days. All those professional windbags were wrong about the England team as we witnessed in the third-fourth place play-off. 

I was in A&E at the time and, as luck would have it, I could watch the match surrounded by the masses in the hours I had to wait to be seen. Naser was convinced that France were heading for World Cup victory so watching England play their socks off against a favourite was a joy to behold. Well done! You boys looked marvellous. (Billy Crystal misquote). So why was I in A&E when I hate hospitals?

I was bitten by some nasty little insect while playing a marathon tennis match against Buckingham last Friday that ended in a 5-3 victory. The match lasted from 6:30pm to 10:50pm. Sometimes my partner and I despaired as the oppo kept returning the ball. Every game ran to duces so getting bitten didn't register til I got home near to midnight. The next day I had another match. My right leg was itchy and a bit swollen but it only started turning really bad in the second two sets. One of the opposition was a nurse. She told me I must ring 111. 

I got home, phoned the number, had an online consultation and was told to get to the emergency department ASAP. That urgency dissipated as I sat and waited and waited and...... Meanwhile I got to hear the stories of other people who were also in my boat. We were all stuck in a filthy waiting room where the floor markers warn you to stay 2 meters apart and the chairs are positioned so your knees nearly touch your fellow zombie-like sufferer waiting for God knows what. It beggars belief that one couple went through triage and then the hospital lost their notes! There were a few people looking worse for wear after a fight and one poor young man had flown over his bicycle handlebars breaking his fingers and wrist - ouch.

As You Like It with a cast of five

I am now back home after a whole night at A&E and am feeling sorry for myself even though my week has had wonderful highlights. I picnicked with Diane and Jeremy at Stowe on Thursday. We watched As You Like It by the Illyria travelling players. There was a lot in the performance I am still chuckling about. Nevertheless,  hear I am on my sofa with swollen and itchy legs worrying that I still need to go out and find a pharmacy to get my prescription filled. All this and I have missed out on another day's tennis. Even though doing it would be quite painful at the moment.

Picnicking in style

It ain't arf hot Mum.

My neighbours taking a dip

This was the name of a BBC sitcom of the 1970s. The only things about it I really recall is the name and that it was about British troops in India. How appropriate that title is for this week. Even my near neighbours, the cows, took to cooling off in the canal. Now we have a hosepipe ban in my county as it hasn't rained for so long. My whole garden is wilting and there is nothing I can do to counter the heat. My tree is especially stressed. Branches have broken off and there is leaf fall too. However, this hosepipe ban is a good excuse for letting the car get dirtier and dirtier. If there wasn't a hosepipe ban, I would have cleaned it - honest!

My grand daughter turned two this week. Danielle filled up the lid of their sand pit with water from the water butt so the girls could play with cold water and irrigate the garden at the same time. This was Mattaya's birthday treat. Years ago, outdoor public swimming pools across the UK were closed because we, as a nation, didn't think they were worthwhile in our climate. Oh, how we could do with one in every town now!

A friend at the tennis club said she had received an offer from Warner Holidays to escape from the heat by booking a holiday in Europe. What an offer! This offer is potentially loaded with opportunities to face wildfires and even higher temperatures. There really has been no escape. Someone at Warner's hasn't kept up with the weather reports. I watched some exciting tennis from the comfort of my sofa this week - and wow, it was really exciting. 

The winning pair of Andie(y)s!

Tennis themed beers from Stella!

I was a little irked that a tennis match I was due to play on Thursday was postponed due to the heat. If they can keep going at Wimbledon, we can keep going at our much slower pace. We just need to tough it out. This Sunday at the club we held our own Wimbledon "fun" tournament. Of course it was hot  - the weather affects us all - it just depends how you deal with it. I was fine - now I can't walk but that is nothing to do with the weather!

Apologies

 We Brits say sorry all the time. It rolls off the tongue even when we don't really take it to heart. At tennis we apologise for winning a point when the ball hits the net and rolls over - we win the point and we are certainly not sorry that luck was on our side. It is a clear advantage to catch the top of the net and I just wish I could do this more often. We even say sorry when someone else bumps into us when they did the bumping - ridiculous!

However, I did feel that Kier Starmer put his heart behind the apology for 185,000 forced adoptions over three decades since WWll. His words were powerful and very human. It is sad that many of those mothers have taken their guilt to the grave and will not here this. I just hope that this apology means that it will never happen again because that is what a true, "sorry" means. As a mother I can't imagine the heartache of having your very own baby ripped out of your arms and taken away forever. As for the parents who subsequently adopt, how much did they know of the circumstances that their new baby came through? Society was ultimately complicit in the way it refused to support unmarried mothers. 

I have a friend who was forced to adopt their baby. At 15 she was locked in a room when she was in labour and told only to ring the bell for help when she thought she was going to die. Punishment dished out for being unmarried at the time, but no such equivalent for the father. Our society then, as it now is still, in many ways misogynistic. My thoughts have been with her through this week.

I will never know whether my mother chose the path of adopting me or whether she was coerced into giving me away. I realise now that something inside me always knew that I was not a good fit for the family I was adopted into. This was as much about me as it was my parents. I describe my life up to the point I met my birth mother as being a square peg in a round hole. Incredibly, I now know I am part of a much larger cohort of people from that era but that doesn't lessen the experience I had growing up. I felt different - odd.

My granddaughter has had her first photo of school so I have put my first photo up. A different ere, a different style!

Our football team was close to being beaten by Ghana this week. That would have been a difficult outcome for England to come to terms with. Playing our next game against Mexico at high altitude on their home soil has many excuses already built in and if or when they lose, I believe they would have been forgiven much more readily than if the score line against Ghana had sent us home. The match was played while I was sound asleep. I  woke up to the news that we will be heading for  Florida.  Wow. What a surprise. I know we are no longer in the top league but we did invent the game that has been adopted by the whole world - even though some people pronounce football as soccer - and that is good enough for me. Come on England!

As for all the Americans who apologise for the words and actions of their glorious leader who has made the two hundred and fiftieth birthday all about him. I hear you and I sympathise. Will he be put on Mount Rushmore like all great presidents? Mmmm. There's a thought.