Anniston 13 & 14 July 2024 - A sporting day

13 July

We got Maiev back from the kennels, she had just been bathed and still had the classic repugnant 'wet-dog' smell.  Her damp fur stuck to your fingers when you stroked her.  She seemed happy enough.

Otherwise, a quiet day to recover from the long drive.

14 July

Well, a sport's watching day, mainly.  With the men's Wimbledon final, Alcaraz beat Jokavitch, the Euros' football final, Spain beat England, and the Americas Soccer final Argentina beat Columbia, it was a day spent largely in front of the TV.

We also went shopping for two Lego sets:

The space shuttle discovery, with the Hubble telescope for Robbie and I.  

A bunch of roses for Madelyn and Jo.

I will take a picture at the start and end of each bag, so that we can estimate the time taken.

Here's how we started:

	At timestamp 20240714_163301 we had the bags out of the big box and on the table, where construction will occur.  There are 17 numbered bags, one unnumbered bag and one bag with the same number as another.  The box is rated 18+.  Here we have the two children and all the bags, nicely sorted into their numerical order.
	At timestamp 20240714_165100, construction has begun.  So far, only the stand for the Hubble telescope has been assembled.  In the background, at the far end of the table, is a Lego heads puzzle that we bought at Lego land. Time taken: 18 minutes.
	At timestamp 20240714_174351, the Hubble telescope construction is complete enough to put on the stand.
	At timestamp 20240714_182201, the Hubble build is complete. Time taken:39 minutes

Total build time for today: 57 minutes

Anniston 6 July 2024 - Conversation & Cars (and a little football)

Another quiet, recovery day, but also a 'sporting festival'.  I watched Formula 1 Qualifying, which produced a grid led by three British drivers, which hasn't happened since the 1968 South African Grand Prix. Then England beat Switzerland (5-4 pen), in the Euros

Just before lunch, as we were about to leave to pick it up, I fell down the stairs.  I already have an injured left leg, which is now considerably worse.  No other damage was done.  The house has some lovely wooden floors that have been uncovered when the carpet was removed.  The steps though have uneven depths.

Lunch was catfish, but I can't remember where it came from.

We watched the next football game, which Spain won.

There was also some spectacular rain, which I tried to record:

For Dinner, we went to Effinas (https://effinas.com) where we met Derek and Leanne, who Robert knows from a long time ago.  We had a nice meal and good conversation. Derek is soon to be the pastor of a local church, it would be nice to visit him and attend one of his services.

I drove back from the restaurant, through the lovely country road. We saw turkeys on the way out, and a deer on the way back. 

Visiting the American dream - Rivals

Saturday, holiday weekend, time for a football game. That's Gridiron so that we are not confused. It's the weekend when the rivals (local derbies) are played:

Auburn Tigers vs Alabama Crimson Tide
&
Georgia vs Georgia Tech

are the games we are interested in.

I was going to call this chapter 'When two tribes go to war" because that best describes the passion the fans have for the game and the' hatred' for the opposition.

In the morning Karen cooked breakfast. We had pancakes with maple syrup, scrambled egg, and bacon. A really good breakfast. Later, Jo and I took Robbie for a walk. He was unable to settle. So I was strapped into the baby harness and with Robbie added we left for a walk. We headed for the Village Mall. There are no sidewalks so we walked on the dried grass on the side of the road. until we got to the Mall. The parking lot was filling up and the Tiger Transport was in full swing taking people to the stadium on their huge busses in a scheme reminiscent of park-and-ride.
The mall was almost deserted. We bought what we went for. It was marked $10, we were charged just $4.35, presumably a Black Friday hangover.

Back for lunch, leftovers from Thanksgiving, and soon after we settled down for the game. When Robert returned he was trying to watch both games, while I was trying to retrieve year old memories to make sense of what I was watching.
Auburn scored the first touchdown. That was a surprise as I had heard many conversations, none of which really expected an Auburn win. They were soon behind. Georgia made a slow start and were faced with an up hill struggle. Despite these setbacks the games were exciting, I had an interest in the results however small.
The Georgia game was tied at 27 and went into overtime. At the end of overtime the score was 41 to 34. Georgia had triumphed. One of the two results had turned out the way we wanted.

The end to the Auburn vs Alabama game has already passed into football history. A review led to 1 second being put on the clock. It was a tied game at that point. Alabama had the ball. The only way to win is to kick a field goal. As soon as the ball goes out of play the game is over. The kick was taken, and missed. The ball was caught by an Auburn player who then ran the entire 100 yards to score a touchdown. We heard the shouts of celebration coming from the other apartments, the television shows the fans on the field, and the scenes at Toomer"s corner (the crossroads at the centre of Auburn) where the fans go to celebrate), but mainly endless replays of the last play.

Both games had gone our way, making for a very happy household.

Football here is just like football at home, even though they are different games. It is endemic, to be part of the society you must understand the game and at least a little of the current rivalries. You must absolutely know which tribe you belong to, not belonging to a tribe is making yourself an outcast.

posted from Bloggeroid

Trinity United FC 4 - 2 Southray FC II

The Sceptre Sunday Football League held their cup final, for The Hollywood Cup (Division 3) on Tuesday evening at Great Wakering Rovers Football Club.  The Kick-off was 7:45pm.  We arrived with about 10 minutes to spare after picking up Jo's mum, Karen and Robert.  Andy's girlfriend and her parents were also there, it was the first time we'd met them. Both Andy and Mike play in for this club, and I understand that they had been nervously anticipating the game for at least a week.
Trinity started well, a goal on five minutes, and by 25 minutes they were two goals up (Dan Quilter, Matthew Hatt).  Shortly after Andy made it 3, but the goal was dis-allowed because he was offside.  Didn't look it to me, or to Andy, I found out later.  Just before half time Southray scored.  That's bad timing from our point of view, but Trinity were still in the lead when the half time whistle blew.  Southray had started to dominate the game towards the end of the first half and continued to apply pressure for most, if not all of the second half. After Mike was substituted at about 60 minutes the Trinity attack looked as if it would fail to penetrate the opposition half.  Just the occasional ineffective break, then back to soaking up pressure.  Southray's second goal was no surprise.  The fact that they didn't make it three was.  2-2 at the final whistle.  Now 15 more minutes each way, the first period began almost immediately.  Back in their original half Trinity looked more positive and were playing much better. The first period of extra time was goalless.  Many player were now suffering from cramp, they all looked tired. After the turn around Trinity put in their third goal - Matthew Hatt again, and five minutes later Dan added the fourth.
These two teams have been close all season, and gave us an entertaining final.  Congratulations to Trinity on a superb season (they won the league as well).

Game statistics can be found here.

Billericay Town 1 Swansea City 2

About noon on Saturday we left home for the reasonably short walk to the New Lodge football ground. There were lots of people already there. It is many years since I last attended a match, but this was Billericay's big day. The first time against league opposition in their history. After various introductions, including one from the Billericay town crier, the match got underway. There were TV cameras in the ground (I'm not sure if this was a first?). The Billericay crowd supported their team and made lots of noise. The game started rather nervously - especially from Swansea, who were not playing their first team. After about 10 minutes the players settled down, but the quality of the football from Swansea had not improved greatly. So the surprise of Billericay scoring first (Wayne Semanshia) was not as great as it should have been. From the kick-off Swansea did not look as though they were that committed to coming back. Giant killing thoughts entertained the spectators. Our apparent lack of television coverage in the lead-up also got a few mentions. Still 1-0 at half time. Play resumed in much the same vein, but Swansea were starting to get the upper hand. Their equaliser was no surprise, Billericay had been under pressure for a while. After the goal, you would have thought Swansea had settled for the draw. They did not seem to be trying that hard. Then a defensive mistake let Swansea grab a second. Billericay did fight back, but during this period Swansea played some of their best football.
This was not a classic game, but showed that although 170+ places below Swansea, and admittedly with a team at less than full strength, the difference between the two teams was basically limited to the accuracy of the passing.

A word to 'supporters' (the ones just behind me): I'm pretty sure these are regular Billericay fans, so please get behind all your players, even if they aren't at the top of their game.