So I went to bed last night, wearing my England shirt (its quite old; has ‘Styles 6’ on the back) at 10.30, read my book, then turned off the light, went to sleep and woke up with my alarm at 12.30. I Rushed round to the Clissold Arms, ordered two pints of Guinness, and joined the masses for… THE MATCH!!! Which was BRILLIANT. I did have a few, recurring sleep issues but the first half was so exiting, I woke up, sipped some beer and join the other 7 people there in screaming as God’s own child, Jude Bellingham, scored two amazing goals. Ok, 4 people, the others had fallen asleep into their plates of nachos with melted cheese and jalapenos. Then they scored! The Mexicans. Dammit. I took the half time interval to have a quick ‘power nap’. Which turned out, at 2.00 am, to be a lot more ‘nap’ than ‘power. But was screamed awake as the ref was sending off our player!!! NOOOOOOOO!!! It was David Beckham all over again. Ten men just can’t beat 11. Its too hard. But then a penalty. To USSSS!!! Up steps Harry Kane, this time with none of that stupid, poncey, off-putting ‘stutter-step’ bollocks, which I hate more than I hate the Ayatollah, and slams in our third goal. OK, Harry then gave away a penalty a bit later but its 3-2 and surely we can hold on? There’s only 20 minutes left, plus stoppage time (which turned out to be a further 10 minutes in keeping with the new FIFA guidelines of adding up all the time lost and adding your birth month to the total), that should be ‘fine’.
But of course, 10 men, tired men, tired men at high altitude craving normal levels of oxygen. I bought another 2 pints of Guinness; it was going to be a long and stressful 30 minutes for all of us. Except Mrs Serendipity from number 32 who was still asleep from the first half exertions.

We won. Heroes were made. Only the third time in 60 years Mexico have lost in that stadium. I was singing Wonderwall with the barmaid, tops of our voices. “…you’re gonna be the one to saaaaaave meeeee…”, it was brilliant. We all hugged each other. Well, me and the barmaid and Mrs S hugged each other as the sun started to rise over Muswell Hill. It was the best night of my life…

Never happened.

I slept. Never got up. No alarms. Was so sure we were going to lose I just didn’t want to miss a night’s sleep for yet more disappointment. Woke up, looked at my phone and… HOLY SHIT!!!, we’d won. Watched 12 minutes of highlights. Brilliant. MY boys. They did it, even without me. Quite a spectacular result. And they were just brilliant. I’m starting to love the World Cup. Well, I was until Donald (fucking) Trump had the American striker’s red card rescinded by demanding it of Infantino. Probably bribed him. Threatened him. My love of the tournament seems in indirect proportion to my love of FIFA. Which was a ridiculously low bar to start with.

Deliriously Happy Monday

A xxxx