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I am loving living in Hitchin. I have found the place I think I will spend the rest of my days and also the cemetery where I will be buried beneath a cairn of rocks with a pyramid of Ferrero Rocher on the top.
Phoebe and me went to Hitchin Town football club this afternoon to watch the Hitchin Belles take on Histon Ladies. You might think that Hitchin and Histon are more or less the same place and it doesn't matter who won. But if you cut us we bleed Hitchin. Which is frankly really weird. A bit of the High Street came out of me when I had a nose bleed the other day. You're odds on that it was a hairdressers or optometrist. You'd love that joke if you lived in Hitchin. If you don't live in Hitchin that's your own stupid fault. It's the best place in the world. Don't come and live here though. You'll ruin it.
We have watched Hitchin Ladies once before when they got spanked in the FA Cup by a very intimidating team from much higher up the footballing pyramid, but today was a more even match. Histon are doing better in the league and were expected to win, but Hitchin took the lead in the first half. Histon looked like they might walk away with nothing but the loudest goalkeeper in the world trophy. The lady between the sticks bellowed advice and encouragement to her team throughout the entire game. I wasn't sure anyone could really make out what she was saying or if anyone was encouraged, but it was impressively consistent and annoyed the crap out of Phoebe and me.
Despite some good periods of pressure Hitchin were unlucky to go 4-1 down nearing the end of the second half, but it had been such fun to do something like this with Phoebe and enjoy bantering together and just sharing the experience. She is very keen to play for the Belles and eventually the Lionesses, so was interested in what everyone would be getting paid for this match (which was free to attend). I thought maybe the referee might get a tenner and a cup of coffee, but the Lineboys (as Phoebe called them) were, like young writers and comedians being paid in experience.
So it didn't matter that Hitchin were losing, because we were enjoying the daddy/daughter time. With about five minutes to go, Hitchin got a good consolation goal. Then a couple of minutes later they got another consolation goal and we all hoped against hope that they could snatch the draw that on balance they deserved.
I got to walk home with my increasingly smart and surprising eldest child and listen to her crazy and less crazy thoughts and facts and fictions. I don't think life has any ultimate meaning, but this is what it's about.
Catie, Phoebe and me watched a couple of recent "Would I Lie To You?"s this evening. I love this show and it's one of the only remaining programmes that I've not been on that I wouldn't mind a crack at. I am great at doing lies and also spotting liars. But there's enough middle-aged men doing dad jokes on there already I guess.
Catie doesn't care for the show as much, but watched the first one because one of our favourite comedians Michelle Wolf was on it. Michelle didn't get much to do (it's often the way with this show that someone can be on it and go almost unnoticed, though she was funny trying to do accents about as well as I do) and Catie left unsatisfied, which is something she is used to in our marriage. Also thinking it's just a boys' club. True again.
Phoebe and I watched the latest episode which included another of my favourite comedians John Kearns making his first appearance. I hoped that this would be a format that would work for him and it certainly did. His possibly true story of being on Blue Peter and getting a gold badge for bringing on a fairly big rabbit was so funny and I laughed so hard, that at one point I thought my heart might actually explode. Phoebe was actually quite worried about me. I told her that if I died she must let John Kearns know that he had killed me. I can't remember laughing this hard for a good long while. And although I almost died, it made me feel a lot better after I had survived.
You can watch it on iplayer
or here.
