How are you surviving the school holidays?

OK, I know that Scotland are already back at school but this week is like the halfway point for us in our school holidays. I wondered how everyone else was doing?

We're doing surprisingly well. It was an inauspicious start to the holidays, what with me being ill and struggling for the first week, which was of course the week that husband had taken off work - which was good because he could amuse the children, but it was bad because we missed out on family days out. Although we did go to Old Trafford for the Olympic football.

Two excited children

That's Team GB down there!

Although, recovering slowly from a bad chest, the walk up 5 flights of stairs nearly killed me. And they told me at the top that I could have got the lift!

And then, to celebrate the opening ceremony the next day, we had an Olympics-themed tea.

I know top left should be blue but I couldn't find
anything suitable!

And then, of course, we had the Olympics to amuse us all. The first week, Missy Woo went to dance summer school at the local village hall so Monkey and I watched most things just the two of us, when he was here. And then the second week kind of merged with the first week, with us hoping it wouldn't end.

On the last but one day of the Olympics, I took the children to MediaCity to see a special preview screening of a new Justin's House episode in the piazza.

Yes, Justin is on stage there before the episode was shown on the big screen - we were asked to stay sat down so the children could see what was going on.  To make it even more exciting, afterwards, we were invited for lunch in Dock House (the building you can see top left of the picture) along with lots of other lovely bloggers and we got to do this.

Notice smiley excited Monkey there. Two hours before, he'd told me that he was too old for Justin's House but soon changed his tune. (You can also see the edge of Geekmummy trying to get the geekdaughter out from under a table as she hid from Justin!). Monkey was actually most impressed with the huge slices of pizza on offer. He had three.

Which brings us onto this week. We've been chilling a lot (and missing the Olympics) but Missy Woo has just come back from an overnight visit to Granny and Grandad's, during which she had her birthday treat from them of a trip to see the Dora the Explorer show, as well as being spoilt rotten by Granny buying her clothes and more presents. Monkey and I stayed home and made cake - I can blame  Great British Bake Off for his renewed cravings for cake. He also discovered a programme on CBBC that he liked this week called "I Want My Own Room" and got very excited when they visited Dock House, showing them visiting the building we'd been inside only a few days before.

Today marks the end of the fourth week and it actually feels like it has flown. Missy has two parties this weekend and then husband is off next week so we're hoping to go on some days out then we are going to my niece's wedding over the bank holiday weekend.  After that, we will be into the Paralympics. The most exciting thing about that is I managed to secure tickets for one of the athletics sessions for all of us this afternoon for just after the children go back to school. I couldn't believe it! We are all now really excited and have something to look forward to once the holidays are over.

How have your holidays been so far? I hope you are surviving. Let me know how you're coping and what you've been doing.

Cake of the week - A (Blackpool) football cake

This is one of those cakes that I thought up at the last minute. As I mentioned last week, it was husband's birthday on Tuesday and needed to make a cake. I decided I was going to cover it and do some design but I wasn't really sure what.

Suddenly I thought that perhaps I could make a Blackpool cake - for which I'd need tangerine (bright orange in other words) sugar paste. As I am not good at piping or intricate designs, I struggled as to what to do when I came up with the idea of using hexagonal tiles to make it look like a football, allowing some of the tangerine shine through.

All I had to do was make it. The cake was actually chocolate, from Ruth's recipe. As I have her book, I was so glad to see she's included a scaleable version of it in her new book with different quantities and cooking times for different sized tins because sometimes, you just don't have the right sized tin. I make this recipe a lot now; it's easy and it never lets me down.

Having made it and left it to cool on Monday afternoon, I decided I had better get it covered with sugarpaste that evening as I wouldn't have too much time to do cake decorating the next day. I am so glad I did as it then took me most of the rest of the evening. First, I had to colour my sugarpaste. This proved to be way harder than I thought and however much I added, it never seemed to reach the required shade, even when wrapping it and leaving for 10 mins to let the colour develop, as Ruth advises. And trying to work it in to the paste was harder work than kneading bread dough! Eventually, I gave up and settled for a pale orange colour - or maybe it's more peach. Lesson learned - bright colours need huge amounts of food colour.

Then I followed Ruth's instructions for covering the cake with sugarpaste. I now know that the secret is keeping the sugarpaste quite thick as this makes it easier to handle. After a big deep breath, I got it on the cake without rips or holes, and it looked pretty good. Result! By this time, it was past midnight but I thought I had better plough on.

The hexagonal tiles were a challenge. I would have preferred a hexagonal cutter but had no time to get one so I scaled a hexagon to the size I wanted, printed it out then once cut out, used it as a template to cut around, having rolled out some black and white sugarpaste. I placed the tiles gently on the top of the cake to figure out the pattern and after a few goes, I came up with a pattern I was happy with and I brushed where I was sticking each tile with a little water to stick them to the cake. By the time I'd finished, it was way past 1am and my kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it. According to Helen, that's early for cake makers! I left everything as I was very tired by then, but I went to bed with a sense of achievement that it looked quite good. And it tasted nice too!

What do you think?

Linking up with Helen's Cake of the Week feature.

Giving credit where it's due - how to make things right the right way

Back: Danny Ward, Alex Smithies & Alan Lee.
Front: Jordan Rhodes & two new signings

A while back, I experienced what it was like when the reaction to a blog post goes almost viral. Everyone reads it, it gets talked about,  passed around and causes a bit of a stir. That post was my review of the family facilities at Huddersfield Town. The home fans very quickly picked up on it and soon, thanks to Twitter, it had come to the attention of their commercial director Sean Jarvis, who promptly invited me to a meeting to discuss my experiences. In the meantime, the local paper even published a story about it!

Want job security? Don't become a football manager

We all know that the job situation here in the UK is not particularly secure for anybody right now. But however insecure your job is, be grateful of one thing.

You are not a football manager in England.

Yesterday's news that Lee Clark of Huddersfield Town had been sacked when his team were 4th in League One was greeted by many football fans with incredulity. The team had only recently ended a record breaking unbeaten run and they had lost 3 games out of 55. And he lost his job. I'm hearing there may have been other issues in the offing, but if that's not a sign that winning games is not enough to keep your job as a football manager, I don't know what is.

On hearing the news, I referred to the list of English football league managers on Wikipedia. It makes for sobering reading. He's not there anymore, but Lee Clarke with a tenure of 3 years and 2 months was the 12th longest serving of the 92 managers listed.

Look further at the list and it becomes even more disturbing. Over 40 managers, a figure which includes that least secure of all management types, the caretaker manager, have been in the "job" for less than one year. A further 25 have been in post for less than 2 years. If you make it to 2 years in the job, you are doing really well as you've survived longer than 70% of other managers. And so it goes on. If you make it to 5 years, you're practically a saint. Well, maybe they'll put a brick with your name on when they next rebuild one of the stands. One that can be painted over when your inevitable fall from grace occurs.

There are only 4 managers who have lasted significantly longer than that. One is a manager who has brought his club into the Football League from the Conference. The other three are all Premier League Managers - David Moyes, who should make it to the tenth anniversary of his appointment at Everton next month, Arsene Wenger and of course, at the top of this particular tree is Alex Ferguson of Manchester United, who has now been in post for over 25 years.

Is the fact that he has been there so long connected to the club's success? Ask most people and they will say yes. At the start of his Manchester United career, things didn't go well for him at all. In fact, he'd been in charge for nearly 4 seasons by the time he won his first trophy. It was another 3 years before he won a league title, a total of nearly 7 seasons before he won the prize that most club boards want to win.

Can you imagine that happening today? I can't. Owners and chairmen are much, much less patient - they want return on investment quickly and are quick to dismiss a manager they perceive to be under-performing. This creates the management merry-go-round in that they then tempt managers already in jobs to move to their club - oh yes, this is not just about managers being sacked but managers jumping ship too, but then, they wouldn't jump if the vacancy wasn't there in the first place. If clubs were more patient, there'd be a lot of managers who'd been in their job a lot longer than just a few months.

It's hard to put this into a real life context, because it's not real life. In other industries, people would just not be that well-known enough to come to the attention of others like that. And in other industries, your performance is not measured in the same way. I get that clubs don't want to be relegated but generally, that doesn't mean they need to sack the manager and that only affects a small proportion of clubs. Some teams that were relegated last season still have the same managers.

Largely, it is a case of expectation versus reality. Many clubs want more than the money they have available to them will provide. And yes, football is very much about money these days. What isn't?

I guess it could be worse. They could be managers in Spain's La Liga. Vicente del Bosque was once  removed from his post at Real Madrid (his contract wasn't renewed rather than actually sacked) the day after he'd won the club a league title and a week after they had signed one D. Beckham. His misdemeanour? Not winning the Champions League.

In what other profession could your performance be viewed so critically by so many, most of whom have less knowledge and expertise than yourself? Be written about, given abuse both publically and privately? The only upside is that the compensatory payouts are good. And there is always guaranteed work in the media as a pundit or analyst when you are free of weekly commitments shouting at your team.

Most of us couldn't live under the kind of scrutiny that football managers live under, nor could we live with the insecurity. That's why, from me at least, I believe they are due every respect for what they do. It's one of those jobs that is a calling, not just a job. Good job it is so well paid.

When Five Fs go bad - a guest post

Photo credit - dsigning

I'm having a break from blogging today, because it's my birthday so instead, I'm giving you a guest post from the lovely Jo Middleton who blogs at Slummy Single Mummy as a little present from me. When Jo asked me if she could write a guest post and asked what she could write about, I told her that as long as it fitted roughly within my five Fs, I'd be happy to publish what she wrote. She took me up rather literally on this, and decided to cram them all in at once. In one post. Brace yourselves... 

I was instructed before writing this post that the theme should fit in with one of the ‘five Fs’ - family, football, food, fitness or fun – and so being the awkward person I am, I decided I would challenge myself to make it fit in with all of them.

Family, food and fun are easy of course, but football and fitness are more of a challenge, as I’m really not very keen on either, but then I remembered a rather unflattering story about a family football match...

I have quite a small family, but on my Dad’s 60th birthday last year we managed to get about 15 of us together to celebrate with a wholesome family picnic. (Food, family and fun – check, check and check).

My Dad’s birthday is in November, which isn’t exactly ideal picnic weather, and the light drizzle and biting wind wasn’t exactly adding to the occasion. Someone, (not me), came up with the idea of us all warming up with a game of football. (Football and fitness – check and check).

I felt a bit like how I imagine an alcoholic feels when they accidentally find themselves in a pub – I knew I wanted to play, but I also knew I shouldn’t.

I have a reputation in my family for being a tad over-competitive, and team sports like football don’t exactly bring out the best in me. My partner recently played Monopoly with me and has vowed never again. Something about me making games Not Fun. I could surely control myself in a friendly family game of football though?

Apparently not.

My then eight-year-old daughter Belle was a team captain. “You really should pick me,” I warned her. “You don’t want to be playing against me.” She didn’t listen though, foolish child.

The rain was coming down steadily as we kicked off. I began calmly, trying to remain light-hearted, but then Belle’s team scored a goal and suddenly I was shouting at my team mates and scowling. They scored another, and it was all too much. Belle had the ball, ready to shoot, her face eager and excited. I went in for what I meant to be a gentle tackle, but completely knocked her legs out from under her. She lay crying in a muddy puddle. Everyone looked at me.

“I did tell her not to play against me!” I said, in a pathetic attempt at self defence.

Even I wasn’t convinced.

Unsurprisingly, the football wrapped up fairly quickly after that, and before long the rain drove us back to our cars, a valuable lesson learnt in why you should never try to combine the five Fs...

Remind me never to play Jo at anything, not ever. Huge thanks to her for writing this post. 

In which Netmums send me behind enemy lines

I've been to hundreds of football matches. I reckon the tally is into the two hundreds, but could be more. I had a season ticket at football for 6 years, right until Monkey was born. I have been to away matches too and as I started going to matches in the 90s, I've been to some right holes. Things have changed considerably over the last 10 - 15 years.

Since having the children, my attendance at matches has been a lot more sporadic, mainly due to finances. One of my first posts on this blog was about taking Monkey to his first ever live match. His second was to Wembley! Last year, he had a season ticket for Blackpool, which amazingly, was free for him as he's under 8. He's even been to the Nou Camp in Barcelona and we've taken both children to an England U21 match at Deepdale. We're not afraid to take children to football and have generally had good experiences.

When I heard that Netmums were looking for bloggers to review events in the Family Football Festival, I was interested but sadly, Preston weren't on the list. However, we then discovered that one of the matches was Huddersfield Town v Preston and as the children had been pestering me to go to a match again, I volunteered to go and review, even if it meant I had to sit in the home end. I warned the children we would have to keep quiet if Preston scored.

Having read fellow bloggers' reviews and hearing about their experiences, I was quite looking forward to it. Keen to make a good impression, clubs have been welcoming them with open arms and showing them the best they have to offer. It was certainly a great day for going to a football match - dry, clear and neither too warm or too cold. Perfect.

Terry the Terrier

I went to the Galpharm once or twice in the years BC. The stadium announcer said it was ten years since we last played each other, so the ground was still the McAlpine then. As an away fan, I thought it was quite a nice ground but I didn't have children then, which can alter your perception.

We got to the ground after navigating some odd diversions around the town. The nearest car park was permit only but the staff allowed me in to get to the ticket office to collect my tickets because there appeared to be no other way to access the ticket office. Alarm bells started ringing when I noticed that we were in row YY of the stand. Never mind... I took the children back to a local pub to get them lunch, whereupon we became stymied by the service which took 15 minutes to produce 2 iced lollies for the children's treat. I had been intending to park there (and note, I do this at Preston and am happy to pay if necessary) but I was warned it was not allowed. Even though the car park looked nowhere near full and there were no clamping signs up, so I decided not to risk it because of being with the children.

So, we get back in the car, and I try to locate parking. Well, let me tell you, parking was a nightmare. Other bloggers visiting other clubs were offered parking spaces and it would have been lovely to have been offered it here. I fully accept that real families visiting wouldn't get offered this normally so we got to experience what any family would, and it wasn't pretty or enjoyable. I drove down a road signposted for stadium parking but every car park was either permits only or was full. A retail park was nearly empty but big threatening signs bode badly for clamping and after driving around for another 5 or 10 minutes, we finally found a space of sorts at the bottom of an industrial estate which was 10 minutes away.

By the time we were back at the ground, it was twenty minutes before match time. I looked for the family festival activities but saw none, which is odd as I approached the ground on the side of the family stand and you'd think they would be there, but no. We saw the club mascot, Terry the Terrier, and a lady offered the children "Let's kick racism out of football" stickers, leading to an interesting conversation with the children about what racism was. As we walked in, Monkey said to me in a low voice, "Mummy, stand up if Huddersfield score." Bless.

Those steps

We had to go up a number of flights of stairs to get to the family stand. There was a lift, but it said it was not for public use. Nice. But that was nothing compared to what greeted us when we walked in to find our seats. Really quite steep stairs, with no handrails. Family friendly? Hmm, not sure about that. It really struck me as odd, given there are stands which are less steep around the ground. And I've been closer to the pitch at the Nou Camp!

I began to doubt that we had been put in the family section, so much so that I asked the family in front if it was. The look on their faces suggested they agreed with me in a kind of resigned way. I mentioned the football festival to them and they said they had seen a penalty shootout competition if you approached the ground from the other side. This couple had very small children with them and I noticed they left early which meant they had time to walk their children down the very steep steps slowly without being knocked over. The fear of falling is very real - Missy told me she nearly slipped as we descended the steps for half time, but luckily by then, we had reached the small section that had handrails and she was able to grab it to stop herself falling.

Some football! Yes, we did see some, played by Huddersfield mostly.

Onto the match. Oh dear. I don't think I can look at the highlights, PNE were that awful, but it was a pretty good game, which I would have enjoyed more had I been a neutral. And for the record, I never did stand once when Huddersfield scored. Three times. And I had to keep quiet when we did get a consolation, then nearly score a second. Monkey got right into it and clapped and cheered like he was a home fan. That child doesn't care who he supports. Turncoat!

Missy enjoyed the football.

The stand didn't seem family orientated at all, although I believe they may have given away a lot of tickets to schools for this match. There were a lot of adult only groups around us. The group at the back were constantly told to sit down and I was constantly on watch in case any swears came our way. They didn't; at least I don't think they did. Missy still doesn't totally get football - she spent some time during the first half doing her sticker book!

At half time, we went to get a drink. At £5.60 for a bottle of Diet Coke, 2 Capri Suns and a packet of crisps, I found it extremely expensive and certainly not something families would indulge in regularly, especially as none of it is particularly extravagant.

When we returned, I managed to find some spare seats a bit lower down so we didn't have to climb those steps again. The benefit of being higher up was we were shaded longer from the sun but as the sun descended, it got in all our eyes, even with sunglasses on. The second half was better for me because of the goals and it did look for a while like we were getting right back into it, but when we didn't, I made sure we left early so we didn't have to deal with the stairs in the post-match scrum. I noticed that most of the families with small children did the same. Monkey and Missy Woo did behave really well and they seemed to enjoy themselves.

As a parent, however, I didn't. I really wanted to have a great time and I think the Family Football Festival is a great idea. I praise the Lord that I didn't tell the children there would be lots to do, because if there was, it was well hidden. The family stand is not really family friendly at all, given there are other parts of the ground that could better serve families with younger children than that stand, which must have some of the steepest steps I've had to climb in an English football stadium. I cannot understand it - it's almost like whoever designated that for families has either never had small children, or has forgotten what it was like to have them. What also seems strange is allocating someone who is coming to do a review centred around your family friendliness tickets right at the top, like it was some kind of afterthought. That said, if that is how they treat paying families, then I guess we got the full experience. I have tried looking on the club website to see if there is any information that I might have missed but there is precious little there directed specifically about families.

All in all, it led me to conclude that Huddersfield Town pay lip service to being family friendly rather than actually going all out to be properly attractive to families. That is a damned shame - the younger you get fans involved, the more likely it is that they will keep coming. And with people being short of money these days, clubs are going to have to offer wonderful, value for money experiences if families are going to spend their cash on a football match. I'm really sad that I've had to write a negative review because I love football and I want families who haven't experienced a live match to give it a try because, when it's good, it's thrilling, captivating and fun. I really hope that someone from Huddersfield Town reads this review and takes on board what I have to say - I am happy to talk to them further if they wish. And I am not writing this because my team lost. The die was cast before a ball was kicked and this review would have been no better had PNE won, even though I would have enjoyed the game more. I'd take my children back to the Galpharm, but I'd stick to the away end this time. I went behind enemy lines - and I felt sorry for the enemy.

Finally, if you do think about taking children to a football match, I have some tips for you.

• Take a small rucksack, filled with small (silent) toys or books and perhaps an iPod or portable radio as younger children will get bored, even if it's a great match. 
• Taking your own food and drink would not be a bad idea either. Most clubs allow it to be taken in.
• Wear layers, lots of them. There is nothing worse than being cold at a match.
• During winter, always take hats and gloves. It will be dark before the end of a 3pm kick off, even if it is a nice day.
• Check your seat is fully under cover or you could get wet. In most stands, the front few rows can be exposed to wet weather. 
• Whilst front row seats sound fantastic, small children often can't see much from ground level. 7 to 8 rows back allows children a better view of the game as a whole. (Edited to add - seats right next to an aisle are also a good idea, so check where the seats are going to be before you buy!)
• Try and give yourself as much time as you can to get there. 
• Toilets get busy at half time so pop down early if you can, especially if you have recently toilet trained. 

I am a member of the Netmums Blogging Network. I am paid an expenses fee to cover my time but Netmums have no editorial control whatsoever about what I blog about. Being a member of the Netmums Blogging Network means that I get to try out products and brands and get my expenses covered but that I retain full editorial integrity.

Igniting passions... of interest!

I cannot remember the last time I was invited to a dinner party. Obviously, having children really does turn you into a social pariah. I think it's more to do with the fact that we're more likely to eat out at family occasions than anything. And the fact that most of the people we know are also parents and probably don't have the time or inclination to clean their houses, put away the toys, work out a menu, AND cook it whilst making sure babies and children are clean, fed and put to bed before entertaining other adults in the house, as well as the washing up afterwards. 

But still... 

The mystery blogger behind The Boy and Me tagged me in a meme started by Multiple Mummy, who wanted to know about our interests beyond our own families. Just the sort of thing that we could hold court about if we were to get that rare dinner party invite and the subject of our families was strictly prohibited. 

As I said when I was first tagged, I think the subtitle of this blog gives away a lot of clues as to my interests. I wanted my blog to be about those things I am most passionate about, as well as Monkey and Missy Woo, so perhaps I've had some practice at this. Still, that hasn't got me off the hook, so it falls to me to give you some more detail. 

Food - I love food. No surprise therefore that I've struggled with my weight! I love trying new things and I do get bored making the same things over so my meal plans do have a lot of variety, you may have noticed. I cook from scratch most days and my style is most definitely minimum effort, maximum flavour and effect. Whether it's appropriate to talk about food at a dinner party, I don't know but I guess I could talk about it. And food programmes like Masterchef, Great British Menu which I watch in awe of the effort and talent of the people who take part. Thinking about it, cooking it, eating it - I'll talk about any of it!

Football - again, no surprise really, though I don't blog about it as much as I thought I would. Right now, I'd rather not be reminded that my team has been relegated for the first time in the 16 years I have been following them. So, let's focus on the fact that we, as a family, have a huge interest in Spanish football and watch more La Liga games than we do Premier League ones. As you know from previous posts, we have been to the Nou Camp in Barcelona - several times in fact - but we've also been to the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona (Espanyol's old ground), the Mestalla in Valencia, the San Mames in Bilbao, and the Anoeta in San Sebastian. Much as I dislike them, I'd love to go to the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid and for good measure, one of the two grounds in Seville. I can be quite nerdy about it so be prepared to end up face first in your soup.

Competitions - Less so these days but I've been entering online competitions for about 3 years. I've won a few nice things - like a long weekend at Babington House, our Nintendo Wii, and £1000 to spend on a clothing website - and prizes can be few and far between. I am really less bothered about it at the moment but I still do it but restrict entry to competitions with prizes that I actually want to win. I really don't see the point of spending time on an entry of a promotional item I really don't want. The chances of winning a competition that will change your life is small but at the same time, you can win some nice things. I have to admit though, that I probably get more nice things sent to me through blogging than I do comping these days. 

Crime fiction - Children put paid to a lot of reading, but I have read a lot of whodunnits in my time, and still, if I get given one, I relish the chance of losing myself in a book over a weekend. I think I've gone through nearly all the Agatha Christies, and all of Dick Francis's novels too. In recent years, I've discovered Wallander and have been working my way through Henning Mankell's novels. I also watch discovered the Swedish language TV films, which are not based on the books largely. They are brilliantly acted and so poignant in lots of ways, not least because the actress playing his daughter committed suicide in real life after the first set of films were made.

Singing - I was going to say music but I think vocals are more fascinating for me in general. I used to be in a choir and I've sung the services in various cathedrals when the main choir is on holiday. It was challenging - partly because my sight reading of music is rubbish so I have to rely on listening and memorising what to sing! But it was a great buzz. I'm fascinated by the voice as a musical instrument generally. I could probably bore for hours about that. And the person with the most amazing voice? Youssou N'Dour. 

That'll do for me. There's enough there to send you all to sleep. Bet you're all falling over yourselves to get my invite in the post now, aren't you?

Now, this isn't the sort of meme that you tag people in but I'm linking this up to the original post. If you want to take up the challenge, just link up like I have and have a read of some of the other posts. Enjoy!

The Gallery - My blog

When Tara says she's set a tough challenge, my heart normally sinks and I don't feel any better after I've found out what it is, spending the weekend scratching my head and then scrabbling around at the last minute to produce something. Heck, last week, it was so late, I didn't even start the post until Wednesday afternoon! Well, this week, for a change, I looked at the theme for this week and thought "I can do that!" straight away. It was a gimme - well, for me anyway.

For the theme is "My blog". In other words, I must produce one photograph that sums up my blog. With a blog name like mine, that's easy. The only problem was putting it together and making it work as a photo. That included making cakes! I really hope Tara appreciate the lengths I have gone to this week for her - no point and snap for me, this has taken a good hour or more of preparation. I think that demonstrates true dedication to the cause.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you my blog - The Five Fs.

To represent each of the five Fs, we have:

- Family - pictures of Monkey and Missy Woo at school and nursery respectively
- Football - one of my old Preston North End replica shirts
- Food - banana and chocolate cupcakes
- Fitness - my new trainers, which was a Mother's Day present from the children
- Fun - one of the toys we've been lucky enough to review recently

The Five Fs. The five things in my life that I am most passionate about. The five things that I (mostly) blog about. One photo, five Fs. Done!


If you have a blog, how would you depict yours in one photo?

The Five Fs recommends... Barcelona

As you will have noticed from my Gallery post, we've just come back from Barcelona. Well, actually it was just the three of us - Missy Woo went to stay with her Granny for a few nights, so it was just us and Monkey. I thought I'd do a post recommending various places based on each of the five Fs that this blog is (mostly) about. These are purely personal recommendations - everything I've mentioned is purely because we love them.

Firstly, we have family. Barcelona is generally family friendly as the Spanish love children. Monkey got in the way of a few passing pedestrians and the worst he got in return was an indulgent smile and a ruffle of his hair. Getting around is not too bad, even for those still in the buggy years, thanks to copious lifts on the Metro system. My main recommendation in this category is The Patio B&B. It has only two rooms so it's perfect for families who can take over the place therefore not disturb anyone nor be disturbed. It is amazingly quiet, save the distant rumble of Metro trains passing through the tube station across the road - it's located at the back of an apartment block and is surrounded by buildings on all sides. Traffic noise is often a problem when staying in Barcelona so a quiet retreat is great, especially when you have children. What really makes it for me are the owners, Liz and Tony. Liz is English and is a source of lots of information and great help to make your stay run smoothly. She was great with Monkey too, who benefited to the tune of several chocolate bars! A stay there is so relaxed; our second stay there was as good as the first, if not better. We'll be going back.

Our view last Saturday

Then, there is football. You can't really go to Barcelona and not visit the Nou Camp, can you? The Nou Camp experience is the most popular museum in Barcelona but not that good for children - Monkey spent only half an hour there before he got bored. However, actually going to a match is a different experience but not a particularly straightforward one. Let me offer a few tips:

• Although the fixtures for a weekend are known months in advance, kick off times are not decided until 2 weeks beforehand which makes planning difficult. Kick off times can be anything from 6pm until 10pm, 9pm on Sunday so small children might need to stay up, but it's worth it for those who are into football, plus it makes a Sunday night flight home impossible if you are planning a trip.
  
• Season ticket holders can sell their tickets back to the club for resale if they cannot attend a match. This means tickets become available at any time and is the only way you can buy tickets for most areas. If you can't get what you want straight away, keep trying. You may not be able to get tickets together, particularly in a large group but you can often swop once you get inside. Tickets cost between 32-102 euro, more for bigger games.
  
• If you want to buy tickets in advance of travelling, buy your tickets from servicaixa.com - we tried several times over to book tickets from the FC Barcelona site and it wouldn't let us. A phone call to Spain pointed us at this site and it actually worked.
  
• If you do book tickets online, you still have to turn up with the card you used and some photo ID to collect tickets. I spent an hour queueing (and I use that term loosely) to collect our tickets because we did so on match day. If you can go on another day to collect, you'll probably wait a lot less! You can also collect from ServiCaixa terminals of La Caixa bank - IF you can find one.
  

• Finally, get there early. The layout of the stadium is not straightforward and they send you in an access door which forces you to walk round to your "boca" (block).. and then the odd numbered seats are one side of the aisle, and the evens the other! And be prepared for a crush on the Metro on the way home after, or walk if you're feeling up to it.

Next, we have food. I have to be honest here and say we discovered nowhere new this time. Our itinerary didn't really allow it. We apply the following rules when selecting where to eat:

- nice outdoor chairs; plastic ones are a total no-no
- the bar must stock Amaretto; not my guideline and this is not always strictly applied!
- there must be no pictures of the food, especially the dayglo ones that are supposed to make it look more appetising but fail
- never, ever buy anything to eat, other than perhaps an ice cream, on the Ramblas, it'll be expensive rubbish

Most of our eating occurred in two small chains where we've had some great tapas. The first is Tapa Tapa, which I've visited every time I've been to Barcelona and our first meal this time was down at their restaurant in Maremagnum, where we sat outside at Monkey's insistence. (I know they are environmentally unfriendly, but thank God for patio heaters!) We had some stunning calamari there, and tried some black rice with allioli which was gorgeous. The second was Taller de Tapas where we had some great patatas bravas and a tapa of spinach, pancetta and chickpeas, an old favourite of ours. We were very happy when we discovered there is one close to the Nou Camp so we stopped there before we went to the match.

And a special mention for Buenas Migas as a great stop off point for coffee and cake, or their great foccaccia. Husband managed to steer us in the direction of the branch behind the cathedral as he wanted some of their flapjack with yogurt but we also discovered their salami dolce this time around which is enough for two to share! I think we've pretty much visited all the branches in the city in our time and they're always good.

So, we're onto fitness. Strangely, I don't have too many things to say about that. You walk in Barcelona. A lot. Even if you go by Metro, you walk. You soon discover that most line changes actually involve a walk of around half a mile. It's generally pleasant walking in Barcelona if you can avoid the crowds (in which case, give the Ramblas a miss at busy times although you have to experience it once). But if you really want a fitness challenge, perhaps consider entering the Barcelona Marathon. The scenery is stunning and it's only 50 euro to register which is much cheaper than, say, the London Marathon. And it's much quieter too - only 13,000 out of 15,000 registered started last Sunday although it has grown rapidly in recent years, meaning you will get a place rather than having to go through a ballot.

Monkey and Miró

Finally, fun! There is actually quite a lot for children to do in Barcelona. An aquarium for starters, which we didn't get time to visit, nor CosmoCaixa (a science museum) a bit out of the city centre. There are also tons of smaller parks, but Monkey discovered his favourite on our final day. It's Parc Joan Miró, where there is huge Miró statue which totally dwarfed Monkey, but also extensive play areas for different ages of children as well as football pitches and basketball courts. It has a café too, so parents are catered for whilst their children run off some steam. Perfect.

We have been to Barcelona many times, and we will no doubt go again. It never fails as a great place to visit and now Monkey loves it as much as we do. As I said at the start, I've recommended these places I've mentioned here purely because we love them. If you go to Barcelona and try them out, we hope that you will too.

The innocent victim of the Sky sexism row

I'm sure you've read blogs, columns and articles aplenty about the sexism row that led to Andy Gray's dismissal and Richard Keys' resignation from Sky. We all have an opinion on whether they should have been made to go (cos believe it, the words mean nothing - I suspect Keys got the nod to go), and I don't want to focus on that in this post.

Because, in the middle of it all, lies one innocent victim of all this.

That person is Sian Massey, the assistant referee officiating at the Wolves v Liverpool match, who ruled Fernando Torres correctly onside for Liverpool's opening goal, thus displaying her knowledge of the offside rule, something that Gray and Keys had questioned in off-air comments before the game. It was her second match in the Premier League. She'd worked her way up to this and to be running the line at a Premier League match is pretty close to the top of the pile - although she has officiated in international matches in women's football. She turned professional only last year, leaving her other job as a school teacher, and obviously did a good job at her first Premier League match, at Sunderland v Chelsea over the Christmas period.

I'm sure she was offended and upset when she heard about the remarks. What I don't think she could have predicted was the negative effect that it was going to have on her. She received apologies from the two men - if you believe Richard Keys, he rang her and apologised to her personally. I suspect she thought that might be the end of it.

If she did believe that, she was wrong. The PGMOB (Professional Game Match Officials Board) withdrew her from the next match she was due to referee, a League 2 game between Crewe Alexandra and Bradford City. The PGMOB said it was because they believed the attention on her would detract from the match itself. But then, yesterday lunchtime, the PGMOB withdrew her again from a Conference North match between Corby Town and Eastwood Town. This time, the PGMOB, in its infinite wisdom, withdrew her a second time because of the large number of requests for access from the media. In other words, the press want to be there when she next runs the line.

So, two guys lose their jobs for making these remarks and this poor woman, who has done nothing wrong, is having her career negatively impacted as a result. Let's be clear about this - whenever she returns to refereeing, there's going to be a media scrum. That, I'm afraid, is inevitable. Whether it is now, in one week, or in one month, they will be there and yes, she will be under scrutiny. For that game. By denying the press their photo opportunity, the PGMOB are making things worse. It's creating more of a frenzy. When will they realise that they can't play the media the way they want to? They will have, to some extent, dance to the tune of the media for a little while, give them what they crave - and then they will lose interest. After all, they can't follow Sian Massey around in that sort of number forever but I believe they won't stop until they get that moment.

How many more matches are they going to "withdraw" her from? I'm assuming she's lost out on two lots of match fees so her main source of income is being denied to her. For being a woman, for doing nothing wrong. How long do the PGMOB seriously think they can go on withdrawing her?

I learned from this post that there are only 850 women out of 26,000 active match officials in England. I make that about 3%. I guess that women will probably never achieve parity due to the smaller numbers of women regularly involved in football but the PGMOB need more women to train and work their way up through the ranks like Sian Massey has. If they are to do that, they need to be seen to be supportive of their match officials across all genders, races and creeds. I believe, in this case, they should be helping her deal with the media madness. I accept they might believe that they are protecting her but they are not. Actually, I bet they don't think that way - they appear more bothered about how football looks and how it might create bad press for them. Believe me, that's already happening. After all, the Corby manager was quoted as saying that he didn't mind if it was a "man, woman or elephant" refereeing as long as they did it properly. Clubs appear supportive (although I accept that Corby might have struggled to accommodate all the media requesting access - but they could have restricted access to a small number), I suspect her colleagues are supportive, and I suspect most of the general public are too.

If the PGMOB don't handle this the right way, and they have not covered themselves in glory thus far, they could lose Sian Massey. I would certainly not stick around in a job where I didn't feel I was supported, particularly if I had not done anything wrong - in fact, I did just that once. Football would lose a talented referee and gawd knows they struggle to get anyone to be referees these days. I believe it would also send out the message that being different makes you a liability, even if you do your job well and that when your difference becomes part of the story, your employers aren't prepared to back your ability and allow you to continue. I mean, as someone pointed out to me on Twitter yesterday, did they withdraw Howard Webb after Ryan Babel tweeted a picture of him in a Manchester United shirt? No, they did not.

I really hope that it doesn't come to it. I hope that the PGMOB gets over itself soon, and allows Sian Massey to get back on the pitch, or rather along the edge of it. Accepting there will be a media scrum is an important part of that - it will happen come what may. It's sinful that, in withdrawing her, they have almost allowed the sexists to win. After all, the dinosaurs out there - possibly including the two that made the remarks in the first place - didn't want her there in the first place.

By keeping her from doing her job, they are giving the sexists exactly what they want. No women on the pitch, that's progress. It gives the Kick It Out campaign, which is funded by the governing bodies of football, a hollow ring to its messages.

Sian Massey has been treated pretty disgracefully all round. I hope she gets support from the right people soon, as well as from the rest of us.

The Gallery - My favourite photo

This one's a particularly tough call and no mistake. The prompt for Week 31 of the Gallery is  "My favourite photo. And why". Now, I have lots of photos I love, but to pick out a favourite? Hmm...

And this week, there are two pieces of art up for grabs for the two best entries. The stakes are high, so it means making a choice. No more sitting on the fence for me; I have to make a decision for a change and blog about it.

First, I whittled it down to three pictures - which was not bad at all for a first cut  - then to two. Both of them have appeared on this blog before. One of them has been used for a previous Gallery entry. Predictably, both are of my children. But it meant choosing between them because one is of Monkey, and the other of Missy Woo. I don't like to choose between them but I've made my choice. In the interests of impartiality, I will include both pictures. I will be announcing them in the traditional fashion of reverse order.

The runner up is...

Missy Woo on Christmas Day 2007, with her new toy. I just love the look of sheer joy, mixed with more than a tinge of mischief, in her eyes. Iggle Piggle was one of the toys of the year that year but I got lucky and bought it in October when she (and I) first saw it in a shop. I managed to buy it when she wasn't looking and she was less curious in those days.

So, which means that the winner is...drum roll please...

Monkey! I've blogged about this picture before on this post, and I said at the time that I thought it was my favourite picture of him ever, but I've decided it is my absolute favourite photo of all.

The photo was taken of him by my husband on a coach going from Blackpool to Wembley. It was Monkey's second ever football match - and a trip to Wembley to the play off final. It was taken quite early in the morning on the coach down to London. What I love most about this photo are his eyes. I can almost feel the excitement and anticipation that he is feeling in this picture just by looking into them. I love the perspective that this gives - taken looking over the top of the seat behind where he was sat, which gives it a real 3D feeling to the photo. I love that it looks totally different if you turn the photo at right angles to the way it was taken. Most of all, I love that it is a picture of a little boy on a big adventure having a ball and that the promise of a special day was fulfilled.

Why not take a look at some of the other entries to this week's Gallery? There is bound to be a wide range of entries this week. Or maybe, have a go yourself. 

Parky

I was reading a blog post over the weekend, by Lisa at Mrs LJ Hall who was mulling over who would be her fantasy husband(s). It has given me the perfect opportunity to tell you about one of mine.

If you'd asked me in the late 90s, I would have said Gary Parkinson, without a doubt. Most of you are sitting looking blankly at the screen, saying "Wha'?" so I feel it my duty to include a picture of him, although it's not great. Gary - known as Parky, obviously - was a right back, who joined Preston from Burnley in 1997. The picture here shows him playing for Middlesbrough, much earlier in his career.

Now, I don't normally go lusting after footballers. As a fan, I am not the sort that goes to football to watch men's buttocks; I am genuinely interested in the football. But I became a big fan of Parky after a chance meeting one day in August 1998. It was Bank Holiday weekend and PNE were playing at Lincoln City. I drove up to Lincoln alone but was meeting a friend who was coming from Liverpool to see the match. I drove out to the point-to-point on the edge of the city to park there to meet my friend as they were going to be driving past so was a convenient place to stop.

When I pulled into the car park, I noticed the team coach. It was empty, apart from the driver. Being a) curious nosey and b) having time to kill, I wandered over, spoke to the driver and asked him if he'd already dropped the team off. He shook his head, pointed to a path and said, "They've gone for a walk." I walked around the corner, and sure enough, there was the whole squad and entourage wandering around. Gary was the first person I bumped into and he stopped to talk to me, for I was wearing both a PNE shirt and an utterly amazed look on my face. We chatted for a couple of minutes and he explained that the boss - David Moyes at the time - liked them to stretch their legs after a long journey before they got to the ground. He was quietly spoken and charming, with lovely twinkly eyes. After this brief chat, he apologised and said they had to leave. Stupidly, I never asked for any autographs but I got a few hellos as they traipsed back onto the bus and left. I'm not sure my friend totally believed me when they turned up about ten minutes later!

After that encounter, Parky became my fantasy husband. I think I met him again, briefly, at a Player of the Year awards ceremony a couple of years later and he was as charming as before. Unfortunately, about six months after I met him, he damaged his cruciate and was out for a year and never really featured regularly for Preston after that so I didn't often get my fix of my favourite player. He left PNE for Blackpool in 2001, normally a move that would generate a lot of bad feeling, but no-one could really begrudge him moving on at the age of 33. He helped them win promotion that season and then retired from playing a couple of years later. He got himself a job back at Blackpool as head of youth after qualifying as a coach.

This story does not have a happy ending. Earlier this month, I was utterly gutted to hear the news that Gary had suffered a massive stroke and was critically ill in hospital. Although he has improved, there are now fears that he is suffering from locked-in syndrome, whereby he is unable to move, speak or swallow but is aware of what is going on around them. It is early days in his rehabilitation but if confirmed, the prognosis is not good as most sufferers die within the first four months. A few manage to overcome it with specialist care; I'm hoping, praying even, that he's one of them. He's only 42 after all. My heart totally goes out to his wife Deborah and their three children as I can only imagine what they are going through right now. And as for Parky, I've tried to imagine what it might be like right now; to be aware of everything around you, and yet not be able to respond, to express emotions, to talk to loved ones or even to move. Boy, is it scary and frustrating - and yet, I can shake myself out of it a few seconds later, move, type, talk and generally express myself. To be like that 24x7 - well, the thought makes me shudder.

I'm hoping in the months to come that there will be some fundraising to help either him or stroke-related causes. Thus far, I haven't found anything on the Blackpool FC website (and yes, I did check it; I am not proud). A donation to The Stroke Association, a charity that supports research into prevention and treatment of strokes as well as providing information, advice and support to stroke victims, may well be in order. If any event is set up in Parky's name, I will be supporting it wholeheartedly and I'll tell you about it here. If anyone knows of any event set up in his name, please let me know because I would love to be involved.

In the meantime, I prefer to remember Parky as the player and the lovely, genuine man that he was. That doesn't mean I am not hoping for the miracle recovery he deserves because I am crossing everything that it happens. But he will remain my fantasy husband. Get well soon, Parky. You are in my thoughts.

The Gallery - A celebration

This week's prompt for Week 27 of the Gallery was "A celebration". It was in honour of the 40th birthday of Garry from The Blog Up North which was last Friday. His Gallery post is a summary of his celebrations.

Now, no-one is going to believe me when I say that I already thought of making my post about a 40th birthday. Not mine, however - I was 32 weeks pregnant and I am not even sure if or where any photos of that event might be. The most memorable things were a midwife appointment on the day, a pub lunch, a weekend away with dinner not 15 feet from Kenny Dalglish, and Carlisle flooded. No, anyway -  in April, my husband turned 40 and he wanted to go where we always go - Barcelona. We have an ongoing love affair with that city and return frequently so it's weaved through the fabric of our lives.

The trip had been planned for months and then the ash cloud debacle started. For a few days, it looked like we wouldn't be going, and I emailed or rang a few places to see if we could get anywhere closer to home that didn't involve flying. (Answer - No.). I needn't have worried as things were pretty much back to normal by the time we flew on the Friday and everything went without a hitch - apart from an hour long wait to check in and a dash to the plane.

We stayed in a beautiful place that was new to us called The Patio. We'd found it on Tripadvisor and it came highly rated. It's basically in a private courtyard behind an apartment block and is bounded by buildings on all sides so there is hardly any noise. It was hard to believe there was a city outside - the most obvious sign was hearing the Metro rumbling underneath not far away.

The lady that runs The Patio is English and she recommended various places for us to go. When she heard we wanted somewhere special to go for a birthday, she recommended Asador de Aranda for a celebration meal. She booked a table for us for Saturday lunch - as we had a prior engagement with FC Barcelona at the Nou Camp in the evening.

As the restaurant was out of the city centre a bit, we set off late morning to get the metro out to Avenue Tibidabo and then walked up the hill, trying to keep in the shade as it had got hot very quickly. As we walked, we noticed this lovely sign and it was decreed that a photo was called for. (The husband would like me to point out that this is not a label.)

We walked into the restaurant which is on several floors and were amazed. It was beautiful.

(It was empty, because we arrived as it opened and the Spanish tend to lunch late - the place was packed within half an hour.)

You can see a bit more here. We ordered the Menu Asador on the recommendation of the lady from The Patio which came with just about everything. The one thing we didn't take a picture of was the starters - it was a plate of morcilla, chorizo, minced meat, red peppers and chargrilled asparagus. The morcilla (spanish black pudding basically) was spectacular and we wished we'd had more of it.

Then the main event arrived.

Roast baby lamb cooked in a wood oven. It was the most delicious lamb I've ever tasted and it melted in your mouth. (Whoops, sorry, my boobs appear to have got into that picture!).

Then we were brought orujo and rosquillas.

Orujo is the liqueur which tasted of aniseed and the rosquillas are little doughnut shaped biscuits. We dunked them into the liqueur! Then, we had dessert - chocolate mousse, which was nice, but nothing like as special as the rest of the meal.

It was an amazing experience. I can't remember the exact price but I think it worked out under £30 per head which included wine, a glass of cava, water and a coffee afterwards as well as the food. If you ever get the chance to go to one of these places, do so but you might want to make sure you book as they get very busy.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, we had an evening appointment with FC Barcelona at the Nou Camp. They were playing Xeres and we'd bought tickets as soon as we could after arriving. A Barca match falling ON the day of your 40th birthday is not to be missed. We couldn't get cheap tickets and even these ones were a row apart, but when we got inside, we were able to swop so we sat together but we were in full sun for most of the game, and it was hot, despite it being early evening.

(You might have seen that hat before - it was bought that afternoon to keep the sun off. I apologise for it now. I think it's because it clashes with the tangerine orange of the shirt.)

Barca did their bit, and won 3-1 to round the celebrations off nicely. Apparently, the match was on Sky and the children, having stayed at home with Granny and Granddad, tried to spot us - in a crowd of 100,000. Unsurprisingly, they didn't see us but we rang them briefly from the ground. 

All in all, quite a memorable birthday. We've already booked our next trip to Barcelona - we're taking Monkey in March; both for his birthday and also for the Barcelona marathon, which the husband is training for. I can't wait, so I might start saving now for another fantastic meal.

Football rivalries: not in front of the children!

I'm not from Preston, so I never understood why I must "hate" Blackpool FC . In this house, hating Blackpool is not good for marital / family harmony, as my husband is from Blackpool and Monkey has been to Wembley with him. Nor does my husband "hate" PNE either. It generates a bit of banter, but that's it. We are reunited in a greater dislike of another Lancashire (Burnley) but truly, I don't "hate" them.

Football rivalries are usually logical. They're local - look across the city or down the road, find the nearest team and there you go. Instant hatred. Hence , in Lancashire, there's Burnley and Blackburn "hating" in one corner and Preston and Blackpool in the other, even tho Preston and Blackburn are closest together. There is rivalry but not in an "all-police-leave-cancelled-and-away-supporters-must-arrive-on-coaches" way.

Rivalries also develop through "familiarity breeds contempt"- you don't play your rivals as you're in different divisions so the next local team you play regularly does instead. Hence my dislike of Burnley although Francis Stanley Ternent has a lot to answer for (Look him up if you must; try a recording of his voice .... *winces*).

Some are less easy to fathom. One of my regular readers won't like this, but I could cheerfully never attend a match involving Gillingham ever again. For many years, whenever PNE changed division, Gillingham came with us. Matches involving the teams were turgid affairs and Gillingham were responsible for my two worst football moments. The first was a play-off semi final defeat at Priestfield in 1999 where I shouted myself hoarse in frustration for 90 minutes. The second was the first game of the 2001-2002 season - you know, the one where hope springs eternal. We got thrashed 5-0. I left at 4-0, and I got sunburn for good measure. In the UK, many such rivalries are rooted in the bad days of hooliganism.

In Spain, they have their own word for the passion generated by rivalries. Morbo. It doesn't translate into English well, although Phil Ball in his brilliant book "Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football" tries. The rivalries to beat all rivalries in Spain is between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid; huge rivals as well as two of the biggest teams in the world. The basis of their rivalry goes way beyond football - FC Barcelona is often seen as the flagship of the Catalan people who want independence from Spain, whereas Real is seen to represent the Spanish state and, in Franco's days, the Generalisimo's team. God help anyone that leaves one club for the other. The last one that did, Luis Figo, had half a pig's head (how?) and several mobile phones (why?) thrown at him at the Nou Camp when the teams met for the first time after his transfer.

I guess these rivalries make football interesting for the neutral and important for the passionate fan. But I have a problem with them. It is that these rivalries foster incredible hatred. "Hate" is a word I try not to use these days now that I have small children with pin-sharp selective hearing and an ability to copy more finely honed than Xerox. As an adult, you can use the word to other adults and know it won't get taken the wrong way. As a mother with children learning the ways of the world, hate is too emotive a term. I may not be perfect at it, but I try not to say it. It doesn't stop them using the word from time to time - Monkey, in his mock teenager stroppy moments when tired after school, has been known to shout "I hate you" at me from the back of the car when I have dared to refuse his myriad demands. He gets reminded that you say "I don't like you" - and then I tell him I don't like him much sometimes, but everyone has moments like that.

I'm sure many parents do the same sort of thing. I'm sure parents who are football fans do too. But when it comes to rivalries in football, people often seem to lose their sense of proportion. It seems like children of some fans are raised to "hate" their rivals. They learn to hate someone because of the team they support or the town (or country - let it not be forgotten that many England fans still hate Germany, some of which stems back to a war won 65 years ago) where they were born or reside. It's localised xenophobia, as random as hating someone because of the colour of their skin, the religion they follow or their sexuality, all of which are illegal. Surely, this is no better? But it goes on, all over the world, all the time. We think the days of mindless football violence have gone but only last August, there was mass violence at the first match between West Ham and Millwall for 5 years and a supporter got stabbed. Why is that right? And don't think our kids don't see it. They do. Children can be subjected to bad language and hatred at any game as Julia bemoaned in her post last week. The picture on her post says it all - a small child, making an obscene gesture clearly aimed at rival supporters, dressed in a replica kit.

The FA's Respect campaign aims to address all unacceptable behaviour, on and off the pitch, at all levels of the game and the hatred that these rivalries stir up is part of the football culture that is unpalatable to most (I hope!). It deserves to succeed so our children can enjoy the game that many of us love without encountering unnecessary hatred like this.

Football is, by its very nature, a tribal and passionate game, whether it is played at the local park or at Wembley. Let's keep the passion, lose the hatred and hope our children enjoy healthy rivalries in football that are tolerant and yes, respectful.

(The link to Morbo on Amazon is not an affiliate link; I just think the book is a brilliant read.)

The Gallery - A memory (in the making possibly).

This week's prompt for the Gallery over at Sticky Fingers was "A memory". Having had a busy few days (when haven't I?), I haven't had time to go back through the photo archives and dig out an old pic which evokes memories.

I decided instead to turn it on its head and show you photos that aren't memories for me, but are likely to be memories for Monkey. A bit of background first. I am a Preston fan, and my husband is from Blackpool. The teams are big rivals. It is not generally the done thing for the two to "associate". When Monkey was born, we decided he would support Barcelona - our Spanish team and something we can agree on.

One of my very first posts on this blog was about taking Monkey to his first ever live football match, at Preston. He's grown increasingly obsessed with football recently and wanted to go to a match. I chose an appropriate day, we went and he had a great time. It was a month off the end of the season when we went. Blackpool made the play-offs, and Monkey got very excited. The second leg of the semi final was in the evening so he had to go to bed reluctantly. His first words to me the following morning were "Did Blackpool win?" and when I said yes, his next words were "Can I go to Wembley to the final?". Before 8am, he'd rung Daddy at work to ask him the same thing and was told "Probably, but we'll see." Well, that was good enough for him. He went to school that morning and told the class and the teachers that he was going to Wembley with his Dad. I think the whole school knew.

Soon, it was organised that half of the family would go to Wembley and that a large proportion would go on the coach, and that side of the family is not small. I think I worked out that 20 of them on one coach were related to or associated with the family! This was good as it meant that there were several people to entertain Monkey on the trip. Anyway, here are the pictures of Monkey's day out - his first trip on a coach, his second ever live football match, and his first trip to Wembley.

On the coach! 

I think this is my favourite picture of Monkey ever. I just love the look of excitement in his eyes. They set off by car very early and were on a coach by around 7ish. It was a long journey and only just made it into the stadium on time. During the game, Monkey was apparently really good and was not afraid of the noise created by over 80,000 people.

We won, Dad!

This picture was taken in the ground after the final whistle blew and Blackpool had won a place in the Premier League. That's Daddy with Monkey by the way. Please excuse the trilby. I actually posted a link to this photo on my facebook profile and you wouldn't believe the furore it created. Someone (a Preston fan) took offence to it and then he got jumped on by lots of my friends after I pointed out he was dissing my family. It's a lovely picture, it's my family and I'll do what I want. He even got shouted down by other Preston fans.

Looking on....

The final picture is of Monkey watching the post-match celebrations intently. It looks to me like he is taking it all in, like he is storing it all away to play over again and again in his head at will.

The day was long. They didn't get back to Blackpool until late and they got home around midnight. Monkey was still very excited but was still well behaved and full of talk about the day. He went to bed one happy boy that night.

He's getting a season ticket for this season and going with his Dad whenever they can. I fear I may have lost him as a Preston fan - although he has Hamburg, England and Barcelona tops to wear and bought Manchester United pyjamas last week, so there is still hope. 

These may not be my memories but I have looked through the eyes of a boy at an age where first memories stick. Your second live football match and a winning trip to Wembley is a pretty memorable event at any age, isn't it?

This is my entry for week 23 of The Gallery at Sticky Fingers. If you can, please visit the page and visit some of the other entries. I just love looking at people's different takes on the same prompt.