16th November

I've fortunately been permitted an extra day by my employers to sleep off the excesses of the weekend. It was a more emotional, life affirming weekend than I normally involve myself in. In many ways it was the perfect riposte to the harrowing events of Friday night*, to engage myself in life at its finest. I found myself bursting with joy and love for my friends in a way that I didn't necessarily expect.

More predictably, it left me reflecting back upon my own life, what I want from it and what I'm going to need to do to get there. But we'll leave that for another time. Congratulations once again to the new Mr and Mrs Galloway and I wish them nothing but happiness for the future.

As for me, I went to play bingo alone again. I have recently discovered that those who play the game electronically rather than on paper can buy up to 96 cards for any session, rendering it pretty pointless for those of us who want to play one card on paper. Anyway, another inevitably luckless session was redeemed by watching the Republic of Ireland join England, Wales and Northern Ireland in next year's European Championships with a 2-0 and 3-1 aggregate victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Seeing one of football's notoriously prickly characters in Roy Keane embracing his manager Martin O'Neill was oddly moving. I'm looking forward to France staging a great tournament in 2016.

Back to the grindstone tomorrow.



* They won't win. There's far too many of us.

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