Wiping something off the slate

Sunday morning, the so called day of rest, started, as it so often does, with me hitting the snooze button and wishing I had never had children. This was followed by the traditional fights over kit and and increasingly outrageous claims about things that had definitely been packed the night before only to be stolen/disappear/take on a life of their own and be generally absent from the place they had been left. Socks mysteriously migrate from one bag to another; gum shields flee their cases regularly and hide in jacket pockets or boot bags.



And then we started the daily discussion of why a fifteen year old needs 20 minutes in the bathroom with a pot of hair gel every morning. OK, as is often pointed out at this point, my hair care time has been reduced by natural wastage over the years, but even as a teenager it mostly consisted merely tugging a comb through it.



An hour later, having dropped wife and Number Two son off for training at our home ground, I started looking for a space to park near the West Bridgford RFC ground. It isn't easy but there was a good space near the entrance. It was a bit of a worry that even the 4x4 owners considered too rough to park on but it was that or walk half a mile.

If evolution had intended us to walk it wouldn't have provided us with the brains to invent cars.

The match, which I arrived just in time for, was not a showcase for free-flowing rugby. Two packs with something to prove and a gusting wind discouraged any fancy stuff and attempts at long passes inevitably came to grief.

Five minutes into the second half the score was 5-12 and we were making hard work of it. I had visions of a similar outcome to the last time we played, when a muddy day negated our winning streak and they held out for a narrow victory. This time, however, we didn't make the mistake of underestimating them and two more tries saw us win 5-24 despite them having the advantage of the wind.

It wasn't a pretty game, but I can live with an ugly win.