Too Soon

Went down to the beach to see if the annual burning of the Christmas trees had started. There was a pile of trees on the beach, but smaller than previous years, and no sign of anyone getting the fire started. Further along the beach some people burnt a single tree - not wanting to wait for the main burning perhaps? And one group moved their tree along to join in but although there were people hanging around no one seemed keen to get started. There was a lot more discussion this year about whether it was the right thing to do, in light of the fires in Australia. This despite the evidence that claims burning has a similar environmental impact to the council collecting the trees for chipping into mulch. I couldn't hang around as I was playing football - first game of the year. The sides seemed fairly even but although the other lot scored the first and last goals of the night we got all the others in between and won by ten. And that was even with some profligacy in front of goal from our team - everyone seemed guilty of at least one bad miss with the goal at their mercy. I managed to score three although it was young J who was our main man - scoring at least half of our goals with some great skills. Back home watched Leeds play Arsenal in the FA Cup on TV. Classic 'game of two halves' as Leeds dominated the first half but had nothing to show for it and then Arsenal were the better team in the second half and won with a scrappy goal - a deflection off a defender fed in the striker who mishit his shot and scrambled it past the keeper. Quite how Arsenal's Xhaka didn't get booked even once despite his persistent fouling (and a Leeds player doing the same got booked first time) I'm not sure and then the VAR clearly showed an Arsenal player kicking out in retaliation after a 'coming together' and again nothing but it was a decent performance against a team in the top flight and the defeat leaves them free to concentrate on the main task - getting promotion. They do need another striker though.