Ashley's can't shoot! Sunday 24/6/12

Wake at 5:30 in a sweat and pull out a lightweight duvet and then sleep until 7:30am, outside it's still raining, this is reminiscent of the weather when we had the great flood in June 2007. Make rye toast with honey and black coffee for breakfast and eat in the garden room whilst listening to radio 4, then shower and dress and drive to Saint John's for 9 o'clock mass. Sunday morning masses now include the Kyrie, Gloria, and Sanctus sung in Latin. It's quite, quite beautiful and a nice compromise between the millennia old Latin mass and the more recent English language service. As a bonus, I am familiar with all the hymns, (I love to sing), but find myself wondering why the choir keep missing the odd word and catching me out on the last hymn. Eventually the penny drops, I am singing hymn 75 and they hymn 74, which are differing versions of each other. I wish I knew the Latin for, "senior moment"! After communion I collect Leslie from Molescroft and drive to Saturday Market for our coffee and cake at Caffe Nero, after we have sorted out UK, US and European political economy to our mutual satisfaction, I drive him home for noon. We never agree, but our disagreements are always so interesting, as I have said before Leslie is a right wing republican and I a left wing sort of Marxist. I am visiting my sister Jackie and family in Birkenshaw today, so I ring her husband, Gino, who is making a curry to ask what to bring. Then call at Morrison's and buy premium Warsteiner lager for Gino and a bottle of Pinot Grigio for Jackie and some poppadom and chutneys. I used to live about 20km from Warstein, thirty years ago during my last sojourn in Germany and thought then that the beer was the best in the country. Just hope Gino likes it. He is settled in to watch the Grand Prix on TV, and Jackie and the girls have gone shopping, so I take my time driving over and have a pensioners lunch at my favourite fish restaurant, the Mermaid in Morley, the portion is quite small and will keep me going until we eat about six, before the England v Italy match at seven. The fish, as ever, is perfect. After lunch I while away an hour by shopping in the adjacent Asda, where I buy a new toaster, half the elements have gone in the old one, and three plain cotton tee shirts, in red, green and navy, which I like to wear with shorts in the summer. If we ever get one! I arrive at Jackie's just after four and find the curry being prepared to serve. So confess my recent trip to the Mermaid but make amends by eating a large plateful of Gino's excellent chicken korma at half time. My brother Andrew is also there, he is wearing a leg brace after surgery on his knee a month ago. He and I warn Gino not to go native if Italy are winning at half time, but we needn't have worried, after extra time it's still nil nil. Then surprise, surprise, the Italians miss a penalty, but normal service is resumed when Ashley Young and Ashley Cole both miss to put England out. Its only fair Italy were much the better side. I drop Andrew at his house half a mile away and then drive back to Tickton. I get to bed around one.