1st July, 2011

I knew it was fool hardy and quite out of character, but as I was pulling out of Harlow Town station this morning, a little disgruntled at the fat guy in paint overalls who helped himself, undoubtedly ticketless, to our First Class carriage, I decided to post what I was thinking on Facebook. Nothing to do with the carpenter. “I’ll tell you what’s on my mind.” I wrote, “Andy Murray. Why do you all hate him so much? He’s misunderstood. And he’s going to beat Nadal today without a doubt.” Nothing too controversial then, but my stupid Blackberry has barely stopped pinging all day long as yet another bigoted Englishman or woman launches one broadside after another at me. Honestly. Get a life. So anyway, although I am quite confident about my Murray prediction, I had better get my Friday email out of the way to allow me to focus on our man’s progress into the finals.

Talking of distractions I have had another major one this week in the form of a series of emails from an interesting man who, together with his daughter, is kindly hosting Jimmy ( second Friday mention in a row for her ) and six other school friends on a post GCSE jolly in Marrakesh. As you know I am quite a fan of blogs, and his emails together with a series of accompnaying photos that I'll spare the public eye, have been entertaining although I am going to be very happy to have her safely home.

"A promonard followed (attachments 011 & 012) and an early night was
> requested. Albeit with some Arabic Music with three accompanying
> belly-dancers, in our amazing digs, helped along with a little
> dressing up from souvineer purchases! (Attachment 013)."

"Fully enguageing, fully embracing the culture."

"Once kitted out by the boys from Splash (Yann and Ishmail)................. the fun starts. (see attachment 004).
Absolutely hillarious..... the girls had so much fun that it became the topic of conversation for the rest of the day."

"Having decended several kilometers of the Ourika Valley Gorge we hit an unanticipated obstacle; local loggers were also ceasing the opportunity to send logs down the gorge so I aired on the side of caution and we evacuated. Some of the logs were like engine blocks and were really travelling."


Starting with distracting and having moved on to the disconcerting, the last two nights have certainly been that. On both evenings, at around 9.30pm, having bathed ( or at least pretended to ), teeth and hair brushed ( aye right ) and kissed us all goodnight, Bob, our 13 year old, has reappeared downstairs, covered in blood and feathers, gleefully demanding the £2 that Sophie has foolishly promised him for each pigeon he shoots that had been happily roosting and cra*ping in the tree above her Toyota. What have we created?

Ok. Let’s get on with it. COME ON ANDY.