Excruciating

A slightly surreal evening, to say the least. 
Mrs Raheny and the (not so) little ones are off for a night of glamping somewhere in Arklow with most of Finnzy's class to celebrate the end of their primary school days. 
It mostly consists in spending an insane amount of money to stay a night in a micro-lodge (a big barrel with hard beds and no windows) and feed the local midges. 
As it was just the Luca and I in the house this evening, we thought that we'd watch the Passion of the Christ, a film that he has wanted to see for quite a while but that is definitely not suitable for the young ones. 
I had forgotten about the France-Switzerland match but a promise is a promise and I am not fanatical about football anyway. 
I watched the first 20 minutes of the match, saw the impressive header by the Serbo-Swiss guy and thought that it would be a long, rather boring match with the Swiss defending their early advantage to the bitter end. 
I put the film on. 
Finn was keeping me up to date anyway with Whatsapp messages for the equaliser well into the second half, and an ecstatic voice message (mostly a long hysterical scream) for Benzema's second. 
More scream-messaging for Pogba's, and a video of him and his mates jumping up and down in a cloud of midges. 
Then nothing for a while. As a blood-soaked Jesus torn to shreds by the whips of the evil Romans was slowly climbing Mount Golgotha on the screen in our sitting room, there was not a sound coming from Arklow. Strange. I glanced at my phone and saw that the Swiss had reduced the gap to 3-2. Well done I thought. Jesus took a few more falls under the weight of the cross and the next time I checked my phone, the Swiss had equalised! (Still no sound coming from Arklow, no videos of kids bouncing about the place...) 
I told Luca that it looked like I was missing a corker of a match and perhaps I should watch the extra time. 
We paused the Passion of the Christ.
Wow. It was a very very exciting half hour. And then the penalty shoot out. Unbearable. They all took superb penalty kicks. All of them. So much control of their nerves, under so much pressure. Superb. All of them.

Except Kylian Mbappe. 

Luca and I had been on the edge of our seats.

We looked at each other, breathed out, and agreed to resume the film and watch the last fifteen minutes of the Passion of the Christ. 

It was less excruciating.