Football commentating is one of my favourite arm chair sports, once every 4 years, you understand. I was disturbed, if not aggrieved, to discover that only one of the 30 strong England football world cup squad is older than me. When I told R, he said 'Well you are 37 its a surprise any of them are.' Gee thanks. Anyway, its 1 all in the first Englad game. Half time.

I have resisted the temptation to buy St George flags for my car, despite everyone else in my street doing so. In fact, I was in Fareham, ( another story) buying 3 diet cokes in Pound Land and was behind a lady buying aforementioned car flags. I thought about asking her if she had thought through her purchase, but decided to keep quiet as she looked on the Gosport side of Fareham, if you know what I mean. meaty. I texted R as I was walking through Fareham (in cycling attire) to ask him why it was full of students from his school and ill, poor people. The only town in England with more mobility scooters per head is Worksop. His logical reply was that the Year 11s should have been at home revising, and that only people on benefits have the time to drift around Fareham on a Tuesday at midday, the healthy and rich of Fareham are at work. All 3 of them.

Now, to the football. I would have thought that the USA have a better chance of winning based on having more people to choose from in their bigger country to be in their football team. And that the world cup is unfair on small countries with a smaller pool of population to pick from, like Wales, for example. To make things fairer, I think the number of people on the team should be in direct reverse proporrtion to the population. So Wales get to field a full 11, whereas the USA only get to put 0.1 men on, assuming that is that their population is one thousand times bigger. Do you see where I am going with this and how it would work. The Isle of Wight could start entering their own team, and assuming Wales a benchmark of 11, they would get to put on maybe 40 of 5o in their team. This would work wonders for the world population problem, as big countries would soon catch on to the troubles of deciding which footballer to slice into bits to put in the match, and dramatically reduce their population, one way or another, whether it be by a cull of the elderly and non football playing, or women, or by compulsory sterilisation of all except footballers.

Today was another sailing day, not for me and A, who said ' do you think I am crazy?' when I suggested she sail with R and H to Hill Head. So, she and I played tennis and had a quick swim, and R and H sailed to Hill Head, and A and I drove over and met them for a picnic on the beach. H is hugely confident sailing with R now, last Sunday in windy conditions they won a race at the club. R's first win at Netley, first sailing win for about 20 years, and with H as his crew. I and A both had a quick whizz around, it was windy and fun and R and I had a brief whizz around on our own, my first sail of the year, and I was ok, not getting too tangled up on the tacking and knew what to do.

H was keen to watch the football match, and rather bizzarrely is sat in a small paddling pool, empty, in front of the TV. A couldn't care less about anything on TV at the moment, apart from Total Wipeout.

The girls spent the last couple of days at their cousins' , as they had inset days. It sounded like they had a fantastic time, with a visit to a baby rabbit, a long walk, a charity shop trawl which resulted in 2 pristine summer school dresses for H, lots of playing in the garden and looking at the tadpoles they are growing in a barrel. Meanwhile, R was working hard, hard, hard with the noble art of persuading 16 year olds who have as good as left school that they do want to come in to school and finish their coursework before the deadline. And I was persuading a stupid EXCEL database, I ask you, that it would like to magically produce 28 reports for the children in my class with the right words in the right boxes. I got them all printed out and to the head for her comments before the deadline. Now, I just get them all back with the mistakes she has picked up that I and Sheryl ( jobshare star!) missed cos we've read them too many times.

I haven't told you yet about Switzerland, or my cat. Which first? Cat. On Monday I wrote an email to the Cats Protection league and on Tuesday, we delivered her to a vet's in Shirley who health checked her and passed her on to CPL who have a new family for her. A family who don't go on holiday and spend most of every day out, causing their cat to feel lonely and poo and pee everywhere to prove it. She needs an old lady who doesn't go anywhere, , no children to scratch at, and we need to not have a pet to stress us out. It was a decision which I felt bad about before, like I was the baddy and a failure for not being able to look after a cat, but since she has gone, and H spent one evening crying, I feel sure it was the right thing to do and already our house smells less of cat p***.

Switzerland. Does not smell of anything bad, just mountains and waterfalls and lakes and ice cream. We spent a week with Granny Mary in Wilderswil, we had not been there for 7 years so were overdue a visit, really. It is a great spot, near Interlaken, inbetween two lakes, clue in the name. We visited some amazing waterfalls inside rocks with the awesome sound and sight of glacial water pouring out of rocks above. The sound was really loud and A's great line when I said ' Its noisy isnt it?' was 'I've been in quieter places!' She rushed me around the whole complex of steps and waterfalls quick sharpish, not her scene. We also visited another awesome outdoor waterfall, took a quick trip on the lake, did several walks and runs and a bike ride. We did 28 miles, 14 of them uphill, if you have been to Gridelwald you will know it is a fair bit higher up than the lakes in the valley! The descent back home was good, we were really proud of H for doing the ride, even if daddy did get off and push two bikes some of the way.

The girls and R did a high ropes course, as I had done one before in Austria with H and am still shaking, I let R do this one, and it turned out to be much more varied, with 3 small, lower courses that A could do on her own. H loves being up in the treetops on zip wires, as her ambition is to be a hunter, modelled on Robin Hood. A did really well and had fun on it too. Granny Mary declined.