So we qualified !!! About time too. What will happen next, is that we will win the group stage (just), then lose at the quarters, because the player we are banking on the most will have to miss the most important match, due to a sending off ! Job done ! But not to worry, there is always next time. Am I being cynical ???

   Crap morning at work. There were problems with the server, and the client software was not connecting. I could ping the server, but could not logon to it through Enterprise Manager. IT were onto the case, but all the usual people that I would normal contact were off on leave or courses or working from home. You get the picture. D*** had logged the call first thing, but because it was before 08:00, it was the relief team on the ‘help-desk’. The person did just that, logged the call. It was when I tried chasing the call up, at around 08:45, that I found that we had a lack of IT staff. However, someone did call back, and I was able to explain the problem we were having. It took then about half an hour, before they came up with the classic solve all … ‘we are going to turn the server off and then back on again’. This, of course, took another two hours, as the server is located on a different site. By 11:00, all was well again. So not such a bad problem after all. No the ‘crap’ part comes in with the office staff. As usual, they blame the software. The software was working as best it could, without the server. At least the client end opened. I tried explaining to one of them what the problem was, but they just can’t, or don’t want to, understand. ‘Imagine’ I said, ‘that your car has had it’s engine removed. It will not work … is it the car itself, or is it the fact that the engine is missing ?’ This analogy was lost on them.

   A bad episode with the youngest late last night. No apparent trigger. He had been fine. Laughing and joking, and then all change. Extreme to say the least, and it took a good 40 minutes before he calmed down enough for us to go to sleep. And then he was okay today and has been all evening. There just seems to be no rime or reason to it.