Is it that time already?

It doesn't feel like seven days since Saturday was last here,and looking at the blog, I seem to have missed a day entirely. As this will appear on Sunday, despite being about Saturday, you might even say two.

Southglade Leisure Centre, as mentioned by Stew in the last post, proved to be a little warmer than usual, though still as cold as a taxman's heart. However, after an hour of standing there feeling cold and lonely (no other parents were stupid enough to turn up and watch) things suddenly took a turn for the worse. The clouds, which had been shooting overhead at a rapid pace, decided to turn grey and stop.

Now, I can put up with cold, rain and wind; they are all part of being a parent of sporting children. What aggravates me is how the rubber crumbs of an "all weather pitch" stick to my shoes and lower extremities in wet weather. And the cones, balls,water bottles, children...

You name it - it ends up with a rubber crumb stuck to it. I have often wondered how long it would take to steal an entire pitch, assuming you wanted one, but fortunately have never been bored enough to try and calculate it.

After that we went to IKEA. In some ways it was better than last weekend (I managed to get to the canteen before it stopped serving, for instance) in other ways it was worse.I will come to that later. Strangely, in one way it was exactly the same. We had a family come through the checkout - one with a British Lions shirt,one with a Leicester Tigers shirt. Regular readers will know what I am about to say...

...we didn't get a penny from them. I don't know what it is about a Tiger's shirt but they are not, based on our recent sample of three, a sign of open-handed generosity. In fact the whole day was characterised by a lack of generosity as a procession of miserable-looking shoppers made their way through the tills. Some were still very pleasant - members of Scunthorpe, Lincoln and Keyworth rugby clubs to name but a few.

The worst one was the chap who decided to have a go at my wife for daring to help pack his bag (though his wife had agreed to it). I won't go into detail but if his wife ever cracks under the pressure of living with him I hope (a) the right poison is readily available and (b) she gets away with it.

(This a personal opinion and should not be mistaken for the official position of Nottingham Boots Corsairs).

Anyway, better go now, have to be up early for a trip to Nuneaton.

Ah, the romance of junior rugby!