Kicking a Man When He's Down

Well that’s it then. England is out of another World Cup.

A further blast of patriotism wasted on a bunch of philandering, cuckolding over paid underachieving juveniles.

Now there’s just the tennis and the very English Mr Murray. Of course he’ll be Scottish again by the end of the week. Anything less than a place in the final and his roots will start to show once more.

I’ve never really supported any national team in sport. Well, I lie - I got quite excited when Torvill and Dean were in the world championships in Bolero year. I can’t understand how a blanket belief in ones country can help perfectly reasonable people look past the facts. I suppose it’s a kind of faith. Well if football is the modern religion, then this is the point when I have to own up to being an atheist.

At least it will stop the current craze for all those chavvy little flags protruding from cars.

I’ve had a reasonably quiet week, so managed to watch a fair bit of the tennis, and managed to find space to avoid the football. A week back from holiday and I’m scanning the Internet looking for another one. I feel the beneficial need to have a holiday in my diary, so I will soon have to get Rich to make some plans.

It’s a bit like jobs. Rich always says that I am at my best between getting the job and starting it…and he’s right. I’ve got the job and I have the thrill of knowing I’m going to be doing it. Once it’s started I have the downside of actually having to go and do it. Two days continuous work and I’m longing for a rest day.

This week it’s almost perfect. All my jobs are packed into one day on Tuesday. Wednesday sees me at the hospital for my second eye operation, so hopefully normal vision will be restored by the end of the week. It’s been a bit like viewing the world through misty glasses for the last couple of weeks. My right eye is great but has a reading prescription now and my left eye still has a cataract. I can either read or do distance, but not both without some considerable effort at refocusing.

My face has continued to remain numb on the right side. People say they can’t see it and having just seen myself pull more facial expressions than half an hours drama can surely warrant in “Doctors” I know things look reasonably normal – but I can feel it. It gets numb some days very quickly and it gets me down. I can feel a corner of my mouth not working. I bite my lip unintentionally, and food still gets caught in my lower lip. The next stage is waiting for a machine from the Physiotherapy department to try and stimulate the nerves back into action, which might be easier than trying to stimulate the physiotherapy department back into action. We wait with hope.

So back to work, a morning in hospital and a grumpy old face. Still it could be worse. I could have been supporting England