Time and space - all relative

Bipolar timetravel

We started off early. Even after stopping off at Boots. [A fact of sporting life: it all starts off almost too simple: a bicycle and a pair of boots, laces tied, hanging over the handlebars; it becomes more serious and complicated: shin pads, neoprene undershorts, Vaseline (initially for the eyebrows, channelling sweat away from the eyes, it helps to see what you’re doing, then additionally for the nipple irritation when shirts went to man-made from cotton fabrics), washing stuff, towel, etc.; then it becomes less serious but still more complicated: bandages, various supports, pills, rubs, potions and lotions, miracle cures low on the miraculous and the cure, buried among the medical supplies, a pair of boots, somewhere.]

Then we hit traffic. Long queues at all the usual pinch-points. We rollercoastered from early to looking at being late.

Then it all cleared and we looked like being in good time again. We’d forgotten the endless Portsmouth one way system. Then late-running ferries gave us fifteen minutes grace.

Meet the designer of the Portsmouth one-way system

Dave-O, super-confident, inspirational. Like “once more unto the breech”, like “on my order, unleash hell”.

“I know the way” he said, “I’ve stayed here before.”

An hour later, we had almost completed the fifteen minute walk to the High Street. Not so bad for the advance party (they probably would’ve done it in half the time) but not ideal for Neil and his game leg and me, also hobbling painfully and slowly along. So we decided that Dave must’ve been on the design team of that endless Portsmouth one-way system.

Now, AD and I are so bad that on away games we either have to travel separately, or with a responsible adult (so we’re told), so when someone else cocks up navigation-wise, it’s time for us to make the most of it, which we duly did.

A bijou en-suite room

I only just fit in the hotel room shower. Just as well as the water pressure isn’t. Pressurised. At first cold water dribbled out. By the time I’d washed, lukewarm water was dribbling to a halt.

BLISS said what’s the view like. I’d not looked. When I did there were two rotary clotheslines and a bloke in budgie-smuggler swimwear pegging out some bedding, all set in some post-apocalypse themed wasteland. I quickly shut the window, and the curtains.

There’s drawers in the fireplace, a good space-saving measure, I suppose, but this made me laugh out loud:

One dado rail, slipped, now set at a jaunty angle.