Football training and well meaning relatives

I wake at half past seven to the sound of Norman shaking himself and find myself once again driven to the margin of the bed by Louis, who remains in a deep sleep, spread across the bed, his face in angelic repose. I slide my feet silently to the floor, find my slippers and make my way into the garden room, where I let Normy out for his morning toilet. To the east the sky is brightening and stars still twinkle in the sky above us, we might just have a fine New Year's Day. In the kitchen, I make a full English Breakfast, the only changes to our usual menu, are extra sausage, bacon and black pudding for Louis and baked beans, as he doesn't like fried tomato. When everything is ready, I return to the bedroom and gently waken him by drawing the bedroom curtains onto a clear blue sky and a crimson rising sun. Over breakfast I explain that there weren't any fireworks at midnight in the village and so I had let him sleep. He seems satisfied and we move on to today's events and he is keen to try out his new football kit when we take Norman for a walk on the Westwood. He plays with his toys while I wash up and clear away the pots and then opts for a bath rather than a shower, so I duly run one and he climbs in, and then plays with a toy boat, which he left last time he stayed over. After drying and dressing him, it is my turn to bathe and he returns to his toys, until I too am dressed and ready for the off. Louis, Norman and I climb in the car and drive to Saint John's, where we park, a few doors down from Sarah's house. We walk up York Road to the Westwood, Norman on his lead, Louis holding my hand and a plastic bag with his football and boots in the other. There is a nine inch fire hose running down the pavement where a tender has been pumping water in order to defend the houses of Willow Grove from flooding, these face a small lake that has formed at the most easterly finger of the Westwood. Normally we wood walk on the grass, but this has become a muddy beach, indicating how far the lake covered at its zenith. A little further along, there is a Tarmac path that leads to higher ground and I resist all pleas to get the football from the bag, until we have passed Newbegin Pits and have arrived at a wooden bench, just before Barbara English's house. Here shoes are exchanged for football boots, Normy let off his lead and the ball kicked onto the grass. Even here, the bottom of the common is boggy and we have to walk a hundred yards or so in order to find reasonably dry ground. The sun is shining from a bright blue sky, it is eleven o'clock and people start emerging from their New Year slumbers to walk off their hangovers, or walk their dogs, or both. Louis kicks the ball, like the five year old he is, with the toe of his new boots, using his right foot only, so after fifteen minutes of kick and rush, I tell him that if he wants to be a great footballer like his dad, he needs to learn to hit the ball with the inside and outside of both feet. We play a little game of passing, first using the inside of the right foot and then the inside of the left, quite quickly he gets the hang of it, and then we progress to the outside of the foot. Norman watches from a position by the bushes and after an hour, we are both covered in mud and I at least, have had enough. We make our way happily back to the car, discussing the next Tiger's home match against Sheffield, deposit Norman on the back seat and then make our way to Sarah's. Sarah, is making another full English, the world's best hangover cure! Richard is in the shower and Alice emerges from her bedroom at the smell of bacon, I decline the offer of a second breakfast, but Louis accepts, his appetite restored by the exercise. My New Year's duty performed, I leave them after a mug of tea and drive back to Tickton with Norman. I had hung out my white washing before leaving, to take advantage of a blessed, rain free day, hoping the wind might dry it, as the garden remains in shade for a further six weeks. It is still not dry, but there are still three more hours of daylight left, so it may dry later. After giving the dog some biscuits I make roast lamb ribs on winter vegetables in the Romertopf and put it in the oven on a moderate heat before mixing a batch of oaties and baking these on the top shelf, while the oven is on. At 3:00PM radio Humberside broadcasts the match between Hull City and Blackpool and I settle down to listen to it with a mug of tea, while the oaties cook. The pitch at Bloomfield Road is muddy and cutting up, so it doesn't lend itself to the skilful passing game that The Tigers have perfected under their new manager, Steve Bruce. At half time it is nil nil, although we seem to have had the best of it. The oven pings, the oaties are ready, so I take them out and set them on the hob to cool, before checking on my lamb. The meat is tender, the aroma of the lamb, rosemary and fennel is almost intoxicating but it needs another hour before the meat will be browned properly, so it is placed back in the oven, and I return to my football, but first bring my whites from the line and air them on the radiators. The second half is more even, and despite making several substitutions, as the heavy ground and four games in ten days, takes its toll on tired legs, it ends scoreless. Despite failing to win, Hull remain in second place in the championship, which will mean automatic promotion, if this can be maintained until the end of the season. Before dinner I ring Felicity, she is feeling down, her visiting family have been organising and de cluttering her and she feels she is losing control of her own life. They have now left and she faces the first night on her own, since she had the bad fall, so I suggest that Norman and I pop in to see her after dinner and that cheers her up. The roast lamb is every bit as good as it smelled, enhanced by some mint jelly that I remember I had in the refrigerator, and I eat it all, but have to leave half a pot of winter vegetables and the excellent gravy that they and the lamb, have produced. After more tea, we drive to Beverley and I park in North Bar within, outside Pizza Express and walk the quarter mile to Albert Terrace, in order to let Norman stretch his legs. Felicity has left the door open and her house, when I enter, has been cleaned and de cluttered. Her family are only trying to help, she lives on a fine margin of independence, which is only maintained by an army of dog walkers, carers and cleaners, organised by her daughter Melissa, who is a divorced single mum with a full time teaching job, and two children of her own. Nevertheless Fliss feels a little railroaded, and says she now can't find a bloody thing now the house has been tidied. Her mood lightens when I ask if her children indulged in competitive sibling helping, to prove which was the more loving child. Her son Richard and she had a small tiff over something and he told her that he couldn't wait to escape her and her Bohemiam ways, when he was a child. She then collapses in heaps of laughter, when I explain, that all kids of way out parents, yearn for respectability and what they perceive as normality. One should beware of getting ones wishes, as a desire for respectability can lead to an absence of humour. Felicity can't get it through their heads that she would rather have some risk, than no autonomy, but she knows that they mean well and only have her best interests at heart. We leave around eight thirty, she is feeling much better, and so am I, we make each other laugh so much. After promising to see her and the gang in the Poppy Seed in the morning, Norman and I walk back through the quiet streets under a bright starry sky and drive home to Tickton, where we have an early night to compensate for the previous night's "cliff hanging". To bed for nine thirty.