Obviously I am hurting right now but I am trying to stay positive and have been having a clear out of everything Erin so I don’t have constant reminders of her. I have deleted her phone number and email address as well as her home address. I have also deleted the movies I downloaded to watch with her and all the photo’s she sent me during the nine months we were together. I have been invited up to Iceland for a break and a change of scenery with Tomas and Kolla which I will have to take up soon but I need to sort some money out for that first. I won’t be using the money that I borrowed from my dad as that would be another debt that I would have to pay back unnecessarily. Speaking of finances I have just realised that I will be short on rent this month because I didn’t work Saturday or Monday because I was still in turmoil over the collapse of my relationship with Erin! I have worked out that I will be £5 short so I will have to give the landlord a cheque as I know that won’t be cashed until a few days later when I will have the cash in my account! I have also decided to not embark on any sort of relationship for at least a year as I need time to recover as I have been hurt badly three times in the last 15 months. I need friends around me right now not more complicated relationships. As Erin had pointed out I do need to sort my own head out before I can embark on another relationship. One thing is for sure I won’t be looking abroad for another relationship, not that I was this time, it just happened that way, two lonely people meeting on myspace, I should have learnt by my mistakes before!
So onto more positive stuff, yes that’s right, it’s time for my take on my sporting interests from the past week. Starting with a quick shout out to Hull City for making it into the Premiership for the first time in their history beating local Argyle rivals Bristol City in the Championship play-off final. Veteran striker Dean Windass was hero again for Hull scoring the only goal in the game to secure promotion at Wembley. Even with Windass’ advancing years I would still love to have a player like that at Argyle as he has a natural knack of finding the back of the net. With a little luck Jamie Mackie will become one of those players with experience, he certainly has the enthusiasm, I guess only time will tell on that score!
Now for something I haven’t talked about in a while; Formula One. Briton Lewis Hamilton pulled off an unlikely win in Monaco after hitting the barriers early in the race. For a while I thought that second place man BMW’s Robert Kubica was going to pull off a historic win after taking advantage of Felipe Massa’s mistake. But it wasn’t to be for the Pole as his pit stop strategy didn’t allow for him to win as Hamilton was setting fastest lap after fastest lap and ran very long on fuel after he had to pit early to check for damage. McLaren were very clever using Heikki Kovalainen who wasn’t going to score any points to test out the grip on dry tyres before making a tyre choice for Hamilton. Lewis Hamilton regained the lead in the world drivers championship courtesy of Raikkonen’s no score. Raikkonen had a disastrous race first getting a drive through penalty for changing tyres outside of the time frame allowed then later had an off track excursion then ploughed into the back of Adrian Sutil while trying to recover. I feel sorry for Sutil has was in a very solid fourth place in his Force India car when he was taken out of the race by the Finn who lost control under breaking for the chicane. I am glad that Raikkonen didn’t score any points after ruining Sutil’s perfect mature performance taking away vital points from one of Formula One’s minnows. Mark Webber kept his head in the chaos to finish in a solid fourth place in his Red Bull, another solid finish for the Aussie who has been dogged with bad luck in recent years seems to finally be getting some luck go his way. Felipe Massa eventually finished in third behind the BMW after his costly mistake early on in the race, which is the best he could have hoped for in the circumstances. Heikki Kovalainen claimed the final points paying position in 8th denying Raikkonen a point. So after the sixth race of the season it’s the closest title battle I’ve ever seen with six points separating four drivers from three teams. Hamilton is leading world champion Raikkonen by 3 points who leads team mate Massa by a single point and BMW’s Kubica is a further 2 points adrift, Can BMW win the WDC in their second season?
After the weather interrupted first test which ended in a predictable draw England managed to pull off a convincing win against the Kiwi’s at Old Trafford in four days. On day one England looked in good form with the ball but were thwarted by Ross Taylor who knocked up 67 runs taking the Kiwi’s to the close of play. Taylor went on to make 154 before eventually running out of batting partners to set a total of 381 for England to chase. Rather disappointingly England failed to mount a serious challenge with the bat; only Andrew Strauss made anything approaching a good score hitting 60 off 140 deliveries. Everyone else score 30 or less with a number of players failing to getting out of single figures. Stuart Broad put up an excellent rear guard action adding 30 to the total but things weren’t looking good with a 179 run deficit from the first innings. But things were turned around by Monty Panesar on day three claiming 6 wickets for 37 runs helping limit the tourists to 114 – 9 because Flynn didn’t bat due to injury setting England a target of 294 to win. After England’s first innings performance I wasn’t too hopeful but I am happy to say that I was proved wrong. Andrew Strauss seems to be back on form scoring 106 to add to his 60 in the first innings. Michael Vaughan was next highest scorer falling just two short of his half century, Kevin Pietersen added a further 42 before being run out. Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood brought England home with 21 and 24 respectively with six wickets and a day to spare. So well done to England for pulling it out of the fire, but massive props to King Monty for bowling England back into contention and Andrew Strauss for two excellent innings putting the English on top! Now onto Trent Bridge to (hopefully) secure the series!