These Days

They say that there are days when you just shouldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t have that luxury. I awoke yesterday on the sofa, having crashed out while picking at an indifferent box of chocolates. I immediately feared the worst and having unstuck myself surveyed the rather disturbing scene of a sofa covered in a morass of melted chocolate, toffee and caramel, with a similar mix on the jeans. Someone coming in could have come to very worrying (and I must emphasise very wrong) conclusions.

So, after ablutions and a quick check to confirm that I hadn’t won the Euromillions lottery, it was off with the sofa covers and a quick check in with France for some advice on how best to cope (most of which went over my head but I couldn’t persuade my partner Suzanne to look up instructions for my washing machine and read them).

No matter. Thoughts turned to food for later and I opted for a mackerel and potato recipe from one of the Sunday’s. Out to find that the fish shop in the Village is closed for holidays. In February?? My immediate world does seem to be falling apart as plans recently for a Chinese takeaway fell foul of them being closed for refurbishment. No matter, like Sir Chris I have to have a Plan B. To the butchers. Decent chunk of lamb at what looked like a bargain £7. Of course, I’d misread the label and it was £17 (not quite as damaging as when I bought a very nice jumper with Suzanne in France under the mistaken impression that it cost about £12; only one decimal place out in my conversion).

No matter. By this time the early Premiership game was about to start and time to see how my bold decision to draft QPR’s Remy into my Fantasy Football team would pan out. Not in their team (now it seems he has a groin injury and will be out for a while). Bit worrying as it’s unclear whether another of my forwards, Ba, will be picked to play against his old team. Hey, things are looking up, he’s starting. Now I hear on the radio he’s going off with a broken nose.

None of this matters. Because by this stage we’re 1-0 up and set to win, rising to ninth in the table. I really should have bloody known better. For good measure I went on to break my watch strap, completely screw up the timings for the lamb, and end the day wishing I could be bothered to wander outside to find some stray cat (or fox) to take it out on. What's the Jackson Browne song (I do love the Nico version): "please don't confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them".

I’m well aware that some people will have had genuinely bad days yesterday. But in my universe it will go down as below-average, just where we sit in the league now. All that’s left is to somehow avoid the papers, somehow manoeuvre sofa covers back on without pulling them apart, get up at sparrow’s fart tomorrow morning, stagger off to Amsterdam for a few days’ work, and hope that by the time I get back it will all be a distant (if not eradicated) memory. Then I will be able to focus on the fact that there’s another game coming up and that we’re Charlton fans. For them, as earlier in the season, there is only the prospect of continually having to come to terms with being a Palace fan. All is still well.