My Hero

Praise and hallelujah for Landon Donovan. The USA striker's last minute winner in the World Cup yesterday stopped our party from being ruined. Marion and I are celebrating our retirement on Saturday with a few friends and, as a couple of them enjoy football, if Landon had not scored that goal we would have had the pressure of knowing that we would either spoil the evening for the footie fans or that if they watched it it would spoil the evening for the non-footie fans. Now the football followers can watch England at leisure on Sunday and leave us to enjoy the party with no pressure. You may be wondering why we are having a retirement party before we retire but we wanted a summer gathering and felt that half way through our last working year would be the best time for it and this way we can always have another in the winter. Thanks again Landon. USA all the way.



Our annual Instanta golf tournament was held recently but I have been holding back reporting on it as I am waiting for some excellent photos that I keep being told about but which have not materialised on my desk yet. Not being a golfer I didn't go to the event but I am told that a very good time was had by all and I'll be putting the results and the photos on the blog very soon.



Having lost my World Cup betting kitty (bar a few pounds whoever wins top goalscorer)due to the shock defeats of Spain and Germany in early games, I have turned my attention to Big Brother. Son Paul has tipped a rank outsider Caoimhe (or something like that)and I have put all my money on her in the hope that her odds tumble and I am able to lay the bet off to win on the others. So far the strategy is not working as, instead of the odds tumbling, they are rising and my Big Brother kitty is heading the same way as the World Cup one. But experience has shown that it's a long slog on Big Brother and the early favourites rarely win so I'll keep hanging on in the knowledge that Paul knows his BB very well and Caoimhe comes good.



I've had a good deal of admin work to do this week in preparation for the year end on Wednesday. We've got a stock take to carry out so the stores will not be open on Thursday. Jenny has things well in hand as usual. In addition I'm working on preparing a new price list for 1st August. We'll be posting this out very soon. The increases will be modest with the WA2N for example increasing by just £21.25 and still a bargain stainless steel boiler at £446.25.

I'll close today with the great Landon Donovan's goal.