Sunday 30th June 2024

Woke around 0830. Aki brought me a mug of tea, and I read in bed for a while, before rising for porridge. Aki cycled off to Rowing Club. I worked on the Kinks repertoire...there's an awful lot of it! Prepared lunch ahead of Aki coming home from the River Lea. We enjoyed a sizeable brunch before heading for Earlsfield...took a Victoria Line train to Vauxhall, and picked up the Earlsfield overground train from there. We were among the first to arrive…Tami and Franco had laid on a magnificent spread of meats, cheeses, crackers, olives etc. Unfortunately the bash coincided with the England v Slovakia game. I retreated to the front room with a couple of others to watch on telly. We were pretty ordinary, and conceded within 20 minutes. Aki and a handful of others crept in to watch the second half…and as injury time drew to a close Bellingham came up with a miraculous equaliser…the room went mad, Seymour slapped a big celebratory kiss on Aki sat next to him, and we headed into extra time…unbelievably, two minutes later Kane put us ahead! Extraordinary stuff. We repaired to the dining room afterwards to sing happy birthday to Tami and partake of some cake, then the guests began to drift away. We said our goodbyes and headed for Earlsfield train station…