FOOTBALL!!!!

The scene from the sofa at night and early in the morning.

I don't suffer a lot of the "issues" many women have to face from their husbands when it comes to sport. 

Me, I couldn't really care less about sport.  I'd much rather watch a good movie or sit outside reading a book. 

George doesn't care for many sports either with the exception of sailing - which he would rather do a lot of than watch - and football (soccer).   And even with football he doesn't follow a team or side with any consistency and usually could take it or leave it .. unless he gets the opportunity to participate as he did in the Louisiades.

But all this changes with the World Cup.  Every 4 years suddenly George needs to see the games, regardless of the match play time zones, and shout and groan as the ball moves rapidly from one of end of the field to the other ... being at one with the action from the stadium no matter how far away it is.

It's the same right now with the World Cup in Brazil.  The  live matches are starting around 1:30am and 6:30am so sleep can be interrupted a lot or a little depending on who's playing.  Each morning my obsessed husband wakes early with only the words, "the football is on!" and he's away to the TV.  The other night, when Germany and France were playing, I woke when an icy cold body climbed into bed in the near dawn hour of the morning. 

"Why are you so cold?" 

"I was watching the football", was all he said before falling fast asleep.

We've been married for 35 years this coming September and I can trace so many of our movements and changes through the memories of where we were and what was happening when the world cup played.   I remember us living in a share house when I first arrived in Australia, watching the games and being a green American completely unschooled in the game of soccer, much less the big deal of the World Cup.  Watching back then it was very new, the excitement of the games so different, the stadium scenes electrifying and experiencing them with my, soon to be, husband was very romantic!

Weirdly one of my favourite memories is watching the games lying on a mattress on the floor in our "worst little house on the best street" and smelling the fresh floor varnish from polishing the 60 year old floor boards.  We had saved and searched for a house in our dream suburb forever and we finally found this little old 4 room house that was in bad need of either renovating or knocking down.  George assured me we would renovate soon but the mortgage took just about all we had so we ended up doing the fix-up a room or so at a time.  I remember we had moved everything we had at the time - which wasn't much - into the back room of the house and lived there and slept there on the floor while George brought the other 3 rooms up to a livable state.  That was over twenty years ago but, for some reason, the memory of watching the excitement of the World Cup, living in our dream house, and smelling the floor varnish is held firmly in my memory as one of the very best times of our life together.

I still don't know a lot about football.  But the excitement of the World Cup is so appealing and addictive its something that just has to be followed live .. I get that! 

Not much longer to go now before the finals and then sleep will be back to normal.  I'm going to enjoy what's left ... in a lot of ways I don't have much choice.