England VS Argentina 2026

There was electricity in the air all day leading up to the big semifinals. Just moments before kickoff I waved Rebecca goodbye, she's heading up to London before me so I'm staying home with the cat for a couple of days. The first half hour I spent figuring out which device had the most 'live' version of the match. Eventually I settled on the iPad because I remembered that I live in a neighborhood where everyone cheers loudly at their TV's. If anyone started shrieking, that was my cue to turn my head and watch the next time-delayed 30 seconds to see what all the fuss was about. Our goal caused a ruckus, our defeat caused groans, then silence. England's dream died once again at the semifinals. 

Baby Steps

Jamie is currently staying over at ours for a few days and we've both been enraptured by a game I picked up called Baby Steps, in which you control a blubbering man-child up a treacherous mountain. Catch is, the controls and the obstacles are designed to test your patience. You operate each of his legs individually while also influencing his centre of gravity. This means that every step is an ordeal, and every fall while going uphill is a potential catastrophe. In spite of it being intentionally infuriating, it's compelling in a bizarre way. We filled all of our spare time playing it today it felt like. Laughing when we made a slip, undoing several minutes of progress.

Operation Bookshelf, Continues

Operation Bookshelf continues at full force. I went to collect the wall brackets from a nearby Screwfix, I already knew they were too long to take in the car so I had to go by foot, all the while carrying home a pair of 2m white rails. Thankfully it's cooling down a lot around here so it wasn't too nasty a trek. All that's left to do is mark and drill some holes, all the while I'll remember that age old maxim: measure twice, drill once.

I have a week of quite intense sounding work coming up next week so I'll take this opportunity to be kind to myself prior to pulling my hair out. Got some movies to watch, games to play and bits to write - all of my favourite things. 

Ever Expanding Social Circles

Left Newbury with our usual gaggle of four in the car and pootled back to Bristol. The remainder of the Sunday was the definition of lazy in all the right ways. Rebecca and I had depleted a lot of our social batteries recently so this afternoon was a chance to recharge fully. Right before going over to a friend's house for board games! We're slowly making friends with a couple who live up the hill from us who we met at the board game meetup we go to each week, it's been really swell hanging out with them from time to time. They say making friends past your 30's is tricky, but my social circle has literally exploded in the last year or so it feels. Guess we're just lucky people.

Long Distance Family Garden Party

Did a fair few miles today, all in the name of making it to my Uncle's 60th birthday party. It's been a long time since I've been to a family garden party, the kind where all generators mingle and kids splinter off to find their own amusement. I mostly stood in the shade, enjoyed some drink and nibbles and made small talk with relatives, pretty dreamy event all told.

Coming home we discussed watching England play in the Quarterfinals. I couldn't bring myself to acrew the sleep debt required to watch the whole game so I slunk off at halftime to bed. I'll wake up and learn if we went through or not. 

Bye Bye Boat

Enjoyed our final breakfast on the boat before packing our bags and returning to dry land for good. For the rest of the day we felt the phantom pain of motion, even when standing deadly still the urge to rock gently from side to side was powerful.

Rebecca and I drove back to Bristol to check in on the cat (and to cut our cat-sitting bills right down). The rest of the day was spent doing the classic 'recovering from our holiday' - a chance to recompress and return to the world of land lubbing. 

Hardships: Endured

We all set our alarms for an early rise in a bid to beat the sun. Sure enough though, it found us. We somehow managed to endure every hardship we could on this holiday. A heatwave, running around, getting stuck on the wrong side of the boat, shearing off our TV antenna. But we all did it as a unit, emerging stronger, but just a little more battered each time. 

It's our last night on the boat, all the while temperatures continue to soar. I'm still shattered from all the work of the day so hopefully the rocking of the water will lull me off to my slumber.