Wonderful Weekend: Warm Weather: World Cup Woes

With wonderfully warm sunny days, the UK saw a great weekend, however the World Cup fever suffered for both the USA and England with dual defeats.

As sometimes happens in England this time of year, we have had over a week of wonderful weather, and this lasted throughout the weekend, with sunshine, blue skies, and barely a cloud to be seen. The temperatures in the South Of England rose into the upper 80's (28C), which with a light breeze was comfortable, and we had none of the stifling airless high humidity weather, which can be unbearable, especially when most houses have no air conditioning.

Saturday we got up early, and I went out and cut the grass before it got too hot. This doesn't take too long as we only have a small garden, and since it hasn't rained for several weeks, the grass hasn't grown very much.

We had decided to take Debbie's parents out to lunch, which we were going to do last weekend for Fathers Day, except her Mom wasn't feeling too well, and so we did it this weekend instead.

We went to a nice country pub which does a carvery, (for an explanation see HERE), had a nice meal, a nice drive in the country, stopped and walked around a garden centre, and then back to our house for a cup of tea.

Having taken her parents back home, Debbie suggested looking in a new "second hand" shop that had opened close to us, so we stopped there, only to find a small shop half full of the usual second hand things - a few furniture items, odd plates, ceramics etc, and two Polish women who were far too engrossed in their conversation to even acknowledge that we were browsing around. This will probably be another of those shops that open and close in the space of three months.

Since it was a hot afternoon, and we were close to Riverside, a nice section of the Itchen River, we grabbed an ice cream, and walked along the river, then sat for a while and watched the world go by. It was really nice.

In the evening I made us a nice cheese salad sandwich, with some French Bread that we had left from the night before, and we finished off with some vanilla ice cream with chocolate flakes on top, and some fresh cherries. It hit the spot perfectly.

Then time for the World Cup, USA vs Ghana, and sad to say the USA got beaten, but I have to admit that Ghana were for most of the first half just running rings around the USA, and deserved their win.

Sunday I really needed to attend to the front garden, since it had been cleared a few weeks before, but already brambles and ivy were coming through all over, from the roots and suckers that were still under the soil.

I had left these for a few weeks to allow them to grow adequately, but the time was right on Sunday to dig out all the roots, which I did, at least on all the ones that I could. I will now just wait a bit longer to see what comes up next time and repeat the process.

It was hot out there, but where I was working was partially shaded by the house, and being fairly close to the front door, I plugged in my laptop and sat it outside the door, so I could play some good music to work by. My newer MP3 player needs repair unfortunately, otherwise that might have been a better option, but it helped to pass the time.

I showered and cleaned up, and it was then almost time for the World Cup game, England vs Germany, which I had a feeling would not do well, and of course we ended up losing 4:1.

There was so much hype about England and World Cup 2010, but the players somehow just didn't seem to shine, and our performance overall was appalling. Germany went ahead early on with a great goal, then another. England pulled back, then scored a great second goal, which the referee didn't even see, and so it wasn't allowed. The replays show that it was clearly a goal, and there will no doubt be a strong case for football to allow replays to be taken into consideration. It's currently one of the few major sports where the referee decision is final.

So with England 1:2 down at half time, things just went downhill from there, with the Germans scoring 2 more goals and rightly deserving to win.

So both the USA and England are now out of the World Cup, despite their fans having spent small fortunes to go and cheer their teams on. With the knowledge that England would most likely not win anyhow, we weren't exactly in shock.

The weather was still nice after the game, and so we both sat outside in the back garden for a while, just enjoying the nice weather. In England you have to make the most of it, as Summer doesn't last very long most years, and the good weather can sometimes last as little as a week, and the rest of the summer months it can be grey, wet and windy.

Time then to make something to eat, and since we had a big meal the day before, we had some Quiche, Potato Salad and Salad, which went down really well, followed by Strawberries and Ice Cream. Piggies aren't we, but it is summertime!

We decided not to watch the World Cup in the evening, so while Debbie caught up on the soaps, I took a look at my internet traffic for the weekend, and although Friday wasn't bad, my statistics for Saturday were just horrible.

My page views on Associated Content were the lowest for more than five weeks, but judging by the number of articles that other people had published, plus the low traffic on Facebook, and on other sites like Fortitude and Squidoo, it was low everywhere. I think people have just been out enjoying the wonderful weather, and with big games involving both England and the USA, maybe more focus has been placed on sport and days out with the family.

It is of course holiday season in the USA, and so the kids are out of school and parents busy enjoying time with them. Hopefully internet traffic will catch up over the next few days, but I will just keep on writing articles for people to read later I guess.

I hope your weekend also went well. We all need a break from the working week, but these two days just go so quickly sometimes.