SIGN OF THE TIMES

Lazy sort of day until I stirred myself to walk down to the village for a bit of shopping.  Usual shops - Tesco and Herons.  Plenty of hand gel  and anti bac spray ( to sanitise my basket ) in Herons. Tesco had spray but had run out of hand gel.  I always carry my own so I was fine.  But its not good to see standards in the shops start to slip.

As usual I came home along the back lane through the allotments and when I got to my back gate I spotted my next door neighbour Ed who was burning some garden rubbish.  We started chatting and he asked me if I would be watching the match this evening ( Newcastle had an away match at West Ham - first game of the new season.)  I said I wasn't as I don't have Sky - told him I was going to listen on radio.  Unexpectedly he said " Why don't you come round to mine and watch it ? ". I didn't immediately say Yes due to Covid 19 concerns  - but we agreed to both wear masks and keep our distance and figured that would be OK..

Match kicked off at 8pm so around 10 mins beforehand I made my way next door.  Took this selfie  before I left my house. It seemed like a crazy thing to be doing - putting my mask on and going next door to watch the footie.  But needs must.

I was greeted warmly by Riley the spaniel who was very friendly - a bit over friendly and there were a lot of sloppy kisses.  So Ed and I settled down to watch the match.  His TV is huge - twice the size of mine.  It was a really good match.  Newcastle have made a few new signings recently and 3 of them were playing today.  Newcastle mainly played well and won the match 2 - O . Both goals were scored by new players. So 3 points for The Toon and a good start to the season.

Eds partner Deb isn't a footie fan so she was out this evening but she came home near the end of the game - and she took our photo. She thought we looked so funny in our masks.  See Extra.  Ed said it was nice to have someone to watch the match with and who was able to chat to him about football.  I was more than happy to do that.

NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR by Ray Davies

Steps today - 7,384

CORONA CLASSIC - Johannes Brahms -- Hungarian Dance No.5