You wear black when you're in mourning...

Since we last saw you, we've lost something quite important. We've looked all over the flat for it, down at O'Neil's where we saw it the other day, and I've even looked in my filing cabinet at work. We're now sure it's lost. We're feeling pretty blah about it really. You may be feeling the same way. You often will when you loose a World Cup. Part of me wonders if it is worse to be here in London right now than in New Zealand... there are more South Africans here for a start, not to mention the Australians. But I guess that it is probably far worse in New Zealand in actuality, as we turn upon each other... I believed them, you know. When poor performances three years ago were explained away with, “We're building up to the World Cup...", I believed them. When we were beaten by England a while back I was disturbed by their form and by the way they seemed to understand the game better than us now, but when we beat Australia by about 30 points recently, I thought perhaps we knew what we were doing. Well, it's all over now for another four years. As for me, I'm building up to the next World Cup.

We'd watched the fated match round at Sonja's new flat, right here in South Wimbledon so now within (a 25 minute) walking distance of our place. Sonja surprised us during the match when she announced that she'd decided the day before to go to Thailand for two weeks, that afternoon! She'd managed to sort out leave and tickets, and was due at the airport at what seemed like an optimistic 2pm. All that remained was packing, going to work to finish some reports, picking up the tickets, and getting to the airport. Well, it turned out to be 4pm and somehow she did it, with an email from Thailand confirming now she'd made it safely. Routing via Helsinki, Sonja even managed somehow to get a business class upgrade on both legs of the flight. Ah to be young and impulsive. Have a great time in Thailand Sonja.