Today’s pic is of Madge Junior, Bondy and Matt celebrating our victory over Everton, not in itself a remarkable thing because they are bottom of the table, but remarkable because we have gone second in the table as a result. We needed it because we have two games coming up that are as tough as they come – Moan Utd away next, then ARSEnal at home the following week.

Last season, we ‘beat’ Moan Utd – except the referee was the only human being in the land who didn’t see the ball go into the back of the net and we were the only team to put four goals past ARSEnal too. In most matches that would have been enough for a win but we didn’t even manage a draw because they scored five. Ah well, this season we may put both of those ghosts to rest. Hopefully……fingers, toes and everything else crossed (even eyes), horseshoes, black cats and much, much more. Now where is that pack of frozen eye of newt……

David has also got this shot as his pic, from a different point of view (when he eventually gets to load it) – but as always, I’m screamingly jealous because his pic is a million times better than mine.

If truth be told, it was a huge effort to get to the game and we were both tired and not really ‘up for it’. But we ended up enjoying the day out until we got stuck on a train going nowhere on our way back to David’s folks and we were an hour later getting home than we’d planned. Luckily for us, David’s folks were completely unfazed by us showing up at nearly 10pm and we all sat down for supper without them batting an eyelid. Wonderful.

I was, though, deeply disturbed by something I saw today – and no, it wasn’t the ignorant git of an Arsenal fan who laid into us (yes, he did have a smile on his face at the time but that’s no excuse if you ask me) on Wokingham Station before the match. Still, we are laughing now because it was, of course, his team that lost, not ours….and to the Baggies too – heartfelt thanks from me for that one folks.

The thing that I can still see clearly in my mind’s eye is the young girl in the seat next to me, with her sleeves rolled up all through the first half of the game, who must have had 30-40 scars from cigarette burns on each of her forearms and probably 10-15 knife wounds on each arm as well.

I don’t know if they were self-inflicted (I have to imagine they were) or the result of some nasty torture but in either event, they represent something so fundamentally flawed in our world that I have felt terribly disturbed and miserable about it ever since. How can human beings do such things, either to themselves or to one-another? I’m sure I don’t know and I hope to never find out in many senses though I feel that’s a cop-out thing to say. I just know that for a girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen, that’s a terrible cross to bear and I hope she gets the help she needs. Whatever your point of view, her plight can't be right in any sense of the word.

Last year, our building work had just started and the year before, my hens were making a meal of my spinach!