Day 1

An earlyish start to the day as Kieren and I had a mission to do a last Tesco shop.


Kieren had prepared a comprehensive list of all the essentials: bananas, apples, football stickers, bread rolls and biscuits - yes that should get him through our absence.


We’d packed for the trip yesterday (a couple of hours I wouldn’t want to repeat) so there was plenty of time to round up all the chargers and the toiletries.


I then realised I’d run out of gaviscon (old man issues) and shaving soap so we had to stop off at Tesco after a “tearful” goodbye with Hattie, Kieren and Oscar (his little brother).


I couldn’t find soap at first but then I found shaving gel in a squeezy bottle. I was about to buy it when I noticed that it had the word “intimate” in the title and I was worried it might have a fragrance that I wouldn’t want associated with my face so I put it back.


I also bought 2 bottles of water which Hattie had phoned to say I’d left in the kitchen…


We were added to a tour WhatsApp group, which Joss instantly muted - that’s the spirit ….


A pit stop at Fleet Services evoked some pleasant memories about travelling to Centre Parcs but that was all ruined when I realised one of my Cadbury’s cream eggs I’d stashed in the car had been nicked - it was definitely grandma (well, probably - she has form).


Joss had a fantastic drive and we arrived at the Thistle Hotel at 3:30pm where the receptionist was very impressed that we were off to the cricket - luckily my knowledge on the subject got me through his questioning 😳


We then went to the White Horse for some beer.


We like it here.





Once we’d had a few Joss had had her fill but offered to buy me another.


Probably for the first time ever I put my sensible head on and declined - tomorrow is going to be a looooong day so we left and saved a few pennies by having a maccies for dinner.


Back to the hotel and I could have gone to the sports’ bar to watch the Brighton v Bournemouth game but no, once the sensible head is on there’s no turning back so I opted to watch it on my phone in the room, whilst drinking lots of water.


I need to enjoy this feeling of smugness as much as possible because I fear this kind of decision making is not going to continue.


The first half of the match we were ok and took the lead with a very undeserved penalty.


The second half we were absolutely knackered and with no quality on the bench because of all the injuries, we ran ourselves into the ground and Brighton finally equalised in injury time.


Bollocks.


There was 8 minutes of injury time to get through and I fully expected Brighton to claim the winner as we couldn’t get out of our box let alone our half.


Somehow we held on for the draw - a fabulous effort but I’m sure we won’t have much left for the Liverpool game on Saturday.


This has turned into a footy blog when it should all be about cricket!!!


Time to get some shut eye for the travelling tomorrow.



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