Mud, Mud Everywhere

A soaking wet day for a couple of home games against Edinburgh Accies today. They won one and lost one. As coach Colin said,

Well done to all the boys today. Was a tough one but they all stuck in.

Louis was soaking and filthy and freezing and absolutely loved it. Here's another one:

Short Story

Louis wrote a short story for the BBC 500 Words competition:

One Saturday morning I woke up to hear my doorbell ringing.  I wondered who could be ringing the doorbell at 7.23 in the morning? It was my friend Bob. I got dressed and went outside of my warm home. Bob said to hurry up as he had a surprise for me.  This early?

I thought it was going to play football so I followed him walking away from the house for a while.  Something made me feel a bit scared and I wanted to run back, but Bob grabbed me and he kept on pushing me forward.  I suddenly didn’t like Bob even though he was my best friend, why was he pushing me this way?

I couldn’t think of anything nice.  As he shoved me flat on my face right in front of an ancient bridge that we had arrived at.  I looked up in fear.  ‘Get up you wimp!’ said Bob.  Now, suddenly Bobs was acting really nasty.  I walked on to the bridge looking down at the river, the planks creaked with every step.  

The rope holding up the bridge looked like it was about to break with every movement I made.  I looked back at Bob, he was gesturing for me to move forward.  Of course I did not want to go any further, so I turned round but suddenly the rope broke, I managed to clasp on to the frayed rope holding up the planks, but the rope stopped holding me and broke.

Bob’s face looked as white as a sheet, I landed in the water, there was a VERY strong current.  I couldn’t swim against it, I was getting pushed to a certain death. 

I shouted out as loud as I could trying to get help, then under the  water I saw a sea monster.  I tried to swim away but it was no use.  The sea monster grabbed me, but I kicked and managed to break free.  I thought I was dead meat.  I tried to swim to the river bank but all I could do was wave my arms and legs around.

The monster was furious and tried to grab me, I managed to go round him, he swam as fast as he could after me splashing the water into a frenzy. I saw we were drifting out to sea, but hope was not dead I heard Police sirens over the monster’s roaring. Bob must have called the Police!

I was heading into the sea, but just then one of the Policemen dived into the water and pulled me to the river bank but the monster was still on the rampage.  The Policemen had guns, I was really, really scared.  BANG! BANG! They shot the monster and he was dead. Hooray!

The Policeman said he was going to take me to hospital and in a few hours I was in a hospital bed with a broken leg surrounded by my family. I wondered what had happened to Bob.

Round The Houses

February half-term, and we headed south. We flew down to Gatwick in the wee small hours, then took a train into London to Catherine & Matt's. We spent a couple of days with them, and had a nice time at the Horniman Museum and Battersea Park where Louis and I rented funny little recumbent bikes.

Next stop was Pat & John in Saffron Walden, where we went canoeing (not punting!) on the otherwise deserted Cam, took in a couple of movies (Sing and Lego Batman, the latter was much better) and went to Hatfield Forest (where the boats were not for hire, alas).

After that we rented a car and drove to Brighton, there to meet with Kate & Mick. We strolled along the front, gawped at the ruined west pier and the BA i360, then repaired to V.I.P. for a very nice pizza and very very nice churros-like things I forget the name of.

We stayed with Nikki & Tim in East Grinstead, then next day met Kate again for brunch in Haywards Heath, after a very nice stroll with Martha the dog in Victoria Park.

Then it was back to Nikki & Tim's for afternoon drinking, then dinner and a non-skiing reunion with Liz & Ric and all their kids. Then back on a plane to Edinburgh.

Crazy week, but great fun.