An Unlikely Subject.

I have been struggling again of late to keep up with my visiting and commenting etc. The latest inroads into the time available for the keyboard have been made by our grandson reaching the grand old age of 21 - and a very special football match. When he was a toddler and not much more I began to take our son to see the local football, which at that time was Gillingham - the one in Kent. When we moved to our present abode for my next teaching post he and I began to follow Southampton. Since when they have risen to the dizzy heights of the Premiership before a mortifying slide to the ranks of Division 1 where yesterday they met Gillingham! That being so, my son returned the ancient favour and took me to see them. That and Friday's Chinese nosh-up for Matthew's coming-of-age (how quaintly old-fashioned that sounds!) have taken their toll and the process of catching-up has flagged a bit. Neither is it about to get better, for we have to prepare for builders, electricians, decorators and other distractions over the next few weeks, so the time-squeeze is unlikely to go away any time soon. However, I will do my best.

In the meantime, from yesterday (not for the purists), these:

The parked car cowers
like a frightened bird
beneath the hovering black cranes.

A pizza-pod
mistaken for a pasty.
My teeth unleash hot, molten cheese.

Climbing to our seats -
do birds get puffed
before they get their bird's-eye views?

Movement, repetitions, patterns:
something intangible
gets physical expression.

Twenty thousand rise expectantly
then sink down in despair -
the ball a foot too high.

Graffiti in the loo
foretold the final score -
and warned against the pizza pods.