Day 149

M and I watched Le Week-End last night, which (spoiler alert) despite its hopeful ending (and great acting) left me feeling a little deflated. Maybe that was in part due to Liverpool losing the Champions League final. But, as M rightly pointed out, football is just a game, and will always remain so, something that I woke up realising with increased emphasis, and realising also that I’d wasted time and energy being upset about it. And, reading the reports this morning, the Real Madrid goalie had a spectacular game, so, as a fully-committed member of the Goalkeepers’ Union, I am happy with that, especially as goalkeepers in general, and Courtois in specific, never get enough recognition (especially in England, actually – and perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise bearing in mind the xenophobia prevalent right now, and the everlasting arrogance of the English – another example of this being their insistence on fencing foil rather than epée along with all the rule ramifications, complacency and reliance on bent referees that particular discipline brings with it). There’s a whole book to be written about how the English don’t appreciate or respect cornerstones and touchstones in all sorts of contexts and settings, actually, but that’s for another day or another life-time. Talking of which, I’ve already christened the radio show Kimmy B and I are going to do in Stradbroke next Sunday The Citizen and the Anarchist, not that anyone knew that before I just wrote it here.

It’s very autumnal out there, and I have a long list of things to do yet today, which I shall once I’ve done this, had my Radio Stradbroke meeting, and had lunch.

Despite me saying that sport’s only a game, and nothing more (whilst maintaining and knowing that epée fencing is a martial art and always will be), I must admit to being concerned about a friend of mine who’s not doing brilliantly on the field of play right now, and part of me feels guilty for not sharing that field with him this year, but the spaces inside my head are more important right now, as is the necessity to have full confidence in my back again (and it is slowly getting there, although it was feeling a bit rugged yesterday). As part of a 3-mile walk yesterday, I stopped off at the local cricket ground (and stopped my stopwatch, just for the avoidance of doubt) and watched a game there for about 20 minutes. Oddly enough (or perhaps not so oddly), I didn’t stand there wishing I was playing. I was entirely content just to watch, to analyse what was going on, and to appreciate skills of captaincy and of technique. The mark of me being an ex-player? Perhaps so. And that realisation was quite invigorating, to be honest.

Onwards.

AGGIE’S ART OF HAPPINESS – CHAPTER 103