On a roll

My football team won again today. The final result was 5-0. I scored one, breaking from the halfway line and passing it past the keeper stood firmly on his line, so that's four in three matches for the season now for me. That's three wins out of four now and we only lost that game (the one I missed, incidentally) 4-3. The other three matches have ended 4-0, 9-0 and now 5-0. It's going well, it's fair to say. I was told today that last year the team scored 22 goals in the whole season. We've scored 21 in four matches so far.

It's good to get to know the guys in the team a bit better too. I think, when Joanne was out with a few of her colleagues on Thursday night, I realised that one of the things I'm missing a bit about life back in London is just having mates at work to go out for a drink with or dinner sometimes or stuff. The people in my team at work are all nice enough, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same. Something's different. Maybe it's just a time thing, and will get better. Maybe it's a male friend thing. True, I have friends at church, some great guys, but I guess I am missing have guys around me at work. Although it's not purely a bloke thing, because Kirsty and Debs back in London kind of filled that role too. Either way, maybe, given time, the guys in the footy team will fill a gap. I don't know. We'll see.

On Friday night Joanne and I went to the rugby with Si and Bek. The Crusaders were playing the Blues. They're from Auckland and historically the rivalry would be equated to maybe Man Utd v Liverpool or something. That's where the similarity ends though. It was a Super 14 game, so we're talking one level down from international rugby. Both teams are littered with All Blacks. The stadium was full to the brim (albeit with one side stand non-existent while the ground is being developed) so there were maybe 20,000 people there. Yet you could hear the players talking on the pitch. At Blundell Park watching Grimsby play with a crowd of 4 1/2 thousand there was regularly more noise. I really couldn't get over how quiet it was. Watching rugby over here is such a different experience to footy back home.