PHEW!!!

MONDAY 31st JANUARY

  My Lloyds Mastercard expires at the end of the day, however an e-mail from Mark informs me that he has posted my cholestrol and blood pressure pills along with my new credit card,so hopefully I'll get it in about a week's time.  I enjoyed a fried egg and smoked salmon for brekkers this morning and then took Reilly for a walk before it really got hot.  However I did feel warm enough on my return to have a cool bath and enjoy several chapters of Richie Benaud's Over But Not Out biography.

  I did a bit more work on the 1961 UK Hits and sent off an invoice to Jan only for it to be returned as undeliverable.  I sent an e-mail to John O'Toole asking if he could confirm her e-mail address and discovered that there were two "n's" in her surname whilst I had only entered one!  The temperatures rose as the day went on and there wasn't a cloud in the sky as I looked out in the garden.  It reached about 40 degrees C.

  Robert picked me up about 4.45pm and we sped over to Epping to see Nick play in the semi-final of his indoor league (they were in the dark kit).  Fairly early on in the first half Nick took quite a tumble and hurt his hip and went off.  The only problem was that his team had no substitutes, there was only the six of them. 

Robert shouted encouragement to Nick urging him to get back on.  Assistant trainer Jane gave Nick some water and a bit of ice on his bruise and he returned, albeit a tad reluctantly to the field of play.  Having no subs took its toll of the players but they manfully played on taking the lead in the first half.  Nick missed a couple of guilt edged opportunities albeit he was fouled one one of them which resulted in a penalty. 

However the keeper saved the shot.  A second goal came the way of the Tigers making it 2-0, although they had their keeper to thank for a series of great saves.  Nick showed a few flashes of skill and put through one absolutely defence splitting pass but the recipient was unable to capitilise on it.

  The scorer of the side's two goals was denied a hat trick when the referee's whistle went a split second before the long range shot crossed the line,  At the end of the game there was quite a bit to think about.  The team's trainer is away next week so Jane will be on her own, and it's the final!

  On the way bck to Oakhurst I told Rob my card was expiring at the end of the day, and had no difficulty in persuading him to pull in at a bottle shop to replenish our stocks, getting two bottles of Chardonnay and a case of 24 bottles of Cool Beer.

  I received the President's foreword, both in Polish and an English translation.  Peter had warned me that I should read it first before forwarding it to the publishers, and he was dead right.  I corrected it to my satisfaction and sent it on to Deborah as Michael Leventhal is on holiday.  I got an e-mail back from her saying she had received it and telling me that her father was from Tarnopol  (not that far from Swirz) and she looked forward to meeting me when I got back!  Well it's just gone midnight so I think it's time for bed.