Meteorological Russian Roulette

Today L works from home, shutting herself away from the phones, with the intention of cracking on with her work and of course kicking footballs...

Actually she has a plan to avoid this by taking the boys on a really long walk first. I hope she knows what she’s doing because you change their morning routine at your peril. Any variation in route is invariably met with a quiet rebellion from Doggo. A sit down protest and 'that look' he does when you veer from the usual. While MD always has his eye on the clock, counting down the seconds to breakfast time, which he thinks is always overdue. He’s a bit of a diva when he’s hungry. That new Snickers advert is so him.



L contemplates feeding them first but then MD would just want his breakfast, again, when they got back. Can of worms.

At the moment tonight’s run isn’t looking too much fun. We’ve had some pretty torrential rain today between the sun showers. It’s sun one moment, heavy rain the next, then back to sun. It’s meteorological Russian roulette.

At 5pm, we appear to be between thunderstorms, so there’s no excuse really for not going for it. The dry spell lasts for about 45 minutes and then the rain gets progressively harder. Still I manage my target of eight miles and then shelter in the bus stop when the worst of the thunder and lightning arrives.

It’s debatable whether any bus will have me but there isn’t any arriving anyway. I wait 30 minutes for the ‘every 10 minutes’ bus by which time my calves are getting well cramped with all the hanging around in the wet.

When a bus does arrive, it takes an age to get home. Derby Road has been blocked by a fallen tree and a diversion is in place. This and the resulting gridlock, explains the lack of buses.

I get home to find that luckily the start to the England v Sweden match has also been delayed, seems they’ve had rain too, so I actually still get to see the whole thing.

It’s not a bad match, but it’s so like watching a typical game in the Championship, say Burnley against Watford. I like it, probably because it seems so reassuringly familiar. Then I’m off the sofa as Watford take the lead.

Burnley valiantly fight back and score twice to go in front but Watford aren't finished. They come from behind to secure a famous victory and a fighting chance of a quarter final against one of the Premier League sides, Manchester City or Chelsea or maybe Spain.

(Friday 15th June)