Saturday heralded the return of Judas’ Pulis to Home Park with his team Stoke City and the result; a rather disappointing 2 – 2 draw. Plymouth had to come from behind twice to salvage a point, a draw wasn’t what was needed for either team. A win for Argyle would have meant a move upto 5th and a win for Stoke would have mean a move up one place to 2nd. But instead Argyle remain in sixth and Stoke fall one place to fourth. So the match then; Argyle came out of the blocks fighting and piled on the pressure but it was Stoke that drew first blood in the 8th minute; Richard Cresswell’s low drive from 6 yards beating Argyle keeper Romain Larrieu. That knocked the wind out of Plymouth’s sails for a while but fought back and got their rewards three minutes from time. Ryan Shawcross’ handball gifting Argyle a penalty which Sylvan Ebanks-Blake make no mistake in converting meaning the teams went in at half time 1 – 1. Shawcross made up for his handball 11 minutes after the half time break heading Liam Lawrence’s corner kick goal bound. A further 10 minutes later it was the Hungarian connection that put Argyle back on level terms; Krisztian Timar rising above the Stoke defence to score from Peter Halmosi’s corner. Eight minute from time Stoke keeper Russell Hoult was dismissed for bringing down Ebanks-Blake while clear on goal and sure to slot home the winner. Despite having a man-over, Argyle couldn’t make the overlap count although Stoke second choice keeper Steve Simonsen did well being thrown in at the deep end to deny the Home Park faithful! Argyle’s next game is away at mid table Cardiff City. Hopefully Argyle can come away with three points from Ninian park, but Cardiff are no push overs, Argyle have had some epic battles with Cardiff over the past couple of seasons. The next game after that will be Argyle’s third round FA Cup clash with Championship side Hull City at Home Park and as ticket prices for Argyle’s FA Cup home games have been dropped to attract more fans, I may even make the effort to go to the game if work doesn’t interfere with my plans. But I have a feeling that I have an early start that Saturday night!
It’s been a lonely time for me during the last week, Erin has been busy with her stepfather’s funeral or ‘funreal’ as she has mistyped every time she has IM’ed me and being there for her mother. This Christmas period was supposed to be a time we could spend a lot of time together as she had quite a few days off work. So it would have been a time to be together (as together as you can get being so far away anyway) and for Erin to take time out and relax. I guess this must be the real thing, I have never felt like this about anyone, if I didn’t hear from my ex’s for a couple of days I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid, but not being in contact with Erin is incredibly tough. I never thought it would be so hard to be apart from someone, I can’t even imagine going to the US to be with Erin and something going wrong with our plans and having to return to the UK, that would be completely debilitating having been with Erin for 3 months. I guess I am just feeling lonely and down about things right now, but this just proves the strength of love I have towards Erin and her towards me.
But something that did amuse me over the last couple of days is the news that Paris Hilton won’t be as rich as she hoped. Her grandfather Barron Hilton will donate 97% of his $2.3bn fortune to charity. This will mean that poor little spoilt rich girl will only inherit an estimated measly 69million after embarrassing her grandfather with her behaviour. Then again, 69 million dollars, that would be beyond the scope of many people’s imagination!