"What's the point of being a medium-to-long-suffering diehard sports fan?"

Dear reader, do you follow the fortunes of the big US sports teams? I know a lot of UK sports fans do. If so, I'm sure you've come to realise that the fortunes of teams are seldom based on the skills of their players, but more often on the curses and spells put on them by witches, wizards, soothsayers or just by disgruntled players - am I right, or am I right!

And do you remember the famous "curse" that fell on the Boston Red Sox some 20 years ago, after the side's cruel refusal to give a contract to lowly reserve pitcher Curtis Leskanic, the guy who sometimes played with the "big guys", but so infrequently that most diehard Red Sox fans had never heard of him? 

That guy certainly hit back with a vengeance after his disappointment over the missing contract, and the team subsequently went down to some embarrassing defeats as a result, as Onion News reported at the time!

Ah yes, those poor "medium to long-suffering" Redsox fans !!! Didn't you feel for them at the time. I know my wife Lois and I did!

Being any sort of a medium to long-term diehard fan of one particular team is never really very satisfying is it. The lows of the shock crash defeats are never compensated for by the highs of the occasional surprise wins, are they.

I remember my dear late father, who was such a medium-to-long-term diehard fan of his birthplace's soccer team Nottingham Forest that he could never bring himself even to watch their games live on TV, but only permitted himself to see their games on repeat, if he knew already in advance that they were going to win. What madness !!!!!

a typical post-match headline, of the sort

that used to send my dear late father into paroxysms of rage

Our son-in-law Francis is a medium to long-suffering fan of Leeds United, and this weekend he's following his team's fortunes avidly as the season draws to a close and Leeds are in with a chance of promotion to the Premier League, I think, or some such malarkey.

18:30 Luckily Francis's family - our daughter Sarah and the couple's twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica, are spending this particular weekend with Lois and me, and arrived here about 6:30 pm after Sarah got out of work. They've decided to leave Francis back at home in Alcester to experience the highs and lows of this "soccer promotion crunch weekend" all by himself, which is probably for the best!

While Francis is at home watching tonight's game, where Leeds United, who are second in the table, are playing lowly Queens Park Rangers, only 17th in the table, Lois and I have the benefit of the joyous company of our daughter Sarah and our twin granddaughters for dinner and a game of Cluedo. They'll be staying with us overnight tonight, and probably going back some time tomorrow, Saturday.

Poor Francis !!!! Yes, his team goes down in ignominious

defeat to lowly medium-to-bottom table side Queen's Park Rangers !

Poor Francis (again) !!!!!!

Oh, the humiliation !!!!!!

Poor Francis (again) !!!

20:00 I'm feeling especially good tonight, because I've found a fellow-sufferer, someone who has shared my post-operation short-to-medium term sufferings, which is always good news, isn't it. Be honest !!!!

flashback to earlier this month: me recovering in my bed at the 

Queen Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, following my hip replacement

operation, being visited by our daughter Sarah and granddaughter Lily

This last week I suffered a violent reaction to some codeine medication that the hospital in Redditch discharged me with after my hip replacement, and today, talking to Amanda, who helps Lois with gardening jobs, I find out that Amanda, who's much younger than us, had a similar reaction after her half-knee replacement that she got when she was about 40. 

Amanda says she was throwing up all over the place after being put on some codeine, which cheers me up no end - me too, Amanda haha!!! And she confirms Lois's suspicion that codeine turns to morphine in the liver. She only got half a new knee, not because she doesn't need a whole one, what with her gardening work and all, but because of her young age at the time. 

flashback to last year: Amanda helping us

with some of our garden maintenance tasks

It seems that if you get a replacement joint, you can never get another one that's the same, so doctors gave Amanda half a knee replacement only. That means she can always get a full one in the future if that's needed. Makes sense, doesn't it, you've got to admit!

a typical patient getting a half-knee replacement

19:00 Lois and I enjoy a meal of sausage, chips and mixed veg with Sarah and the twins, followed by a jelly and cream dessert - and I challenge you to beat that for a Friday Night Dinner: it's the tops isn't it, in anybody's book, haha!

jelly-and-cream dessert following sausage and chips main course

- yum yum!!!

Then follows a game of Cluedo, far too late starting in my opinion, because it's already 8:30pm, but the twins are very keen. We impose a deadline of one hour, and after that, the game will be decided by guesses about who the murderer was, which room and which weapon and all that malarkey. 

As it happens, Lily wins by conventional means with one minute to go before the deadline, which is nice.

preparing to start the game, and Jessie is already

working hard on her "strategy" - yikes !!!!

Lily (left) preparing to make her game-winning claim of 

Rev Green - dining-Room - dagger as the deadline draws near....

22:00 Sarah and the twins finally go to bed.

What's that all about, eh? When Lois and I were 10, back in the mid-fifties, children the age of the twins were all in bed by half-past eight, without fail, even if it wasn't a school night.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

22:15 Lois and I go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!