Spent Father’s Day at the Vineyard Hotel, The Square restaurant had a special on and I thought it prudent to get outside of the city’s embrace given its circumference to everything relating to the World Cup.

The Vineyard is lovely, I always think that I should spend more time there but it’s just not a routine habit that I have been able to bed down. My parents, go often for tea and to greet a dear family friend who know works at the Hotel making sure that their debits and credits balance. So it was an obvious choice for Father’s Day.

But there is just no escaping the football though, during our lunch it became apparent that the Protuguese team were staying at the hotel. I saw Ronaldo and the frenzy that his presence tends to cause amongst teenage girls and their respective mothers. Some of the players signed scarves and jerseys and whatever that was thrown their way. It was nice to see them taking a few minutes out, to make it special for their fans, to pose for photographs and to get into the spirit.

When our meal was over I got up with my aunt who wanted to go for a cigarette and I accompanied her. We were away for about ten minutes talking about some of the games and the fever which she assured me has even spread to sleepy surburbia. On our return my mother proclaims, ‘you missed all the excitement,’ and shows me a picture of my father and Carlos Queiroz taken a few minutes ago.

Of course the next day at the UFO we got to see Portugal score a magnificent seven, now I am not saying it was the advice that I told my father to pass onto Carlos but maybe at half time he remembered something that was repeated to him late Sunday afternoon and the rest is history.

So? Who could have predicted it, we tried to escape the football but it continues to follow us wherever we go, and it’s wonderful. This World Cup is leaving a collage of memories and fantastical imprints which we will treasure always irrespective of the gender or generation – the Beautiful game how beautiful you are up close and personal.

Tempered was my mood before it all began.

Then I was into it, I knew I would be, and so much so that I now own a Serbian replica shirt and a most grubby South African jersey.

And we scored the first goal of the tournament and what a good goal, suddenly our boys were once again ‘OURS’ and so good that you had to say the name twice -Bafana, Bafana. But just as we almost had those precious three points, ‘they’ scored…Ole!

Onto the stadium with our most sensible beagle caps on our heads.

And we even had Bud non the wiser.

The game was boring but the stadium – the UFO is brilliant – it was cold we were shouting for Africa’s surrogate team: Allez, allez les bleu! But they were hopeless. The Uruguayans were far cooler, vamos, vamos Uruguay! My mother even had her picture taken with one of the players mother’s, I’m not saying more other than ‘Diego.’

The TV, the tweeting, that three points that Ghana gave us and how Paraguay christened the Cape Town stadium with it’s first goal.

Now I have the ‘Vuvuzela 2010′ application on my Itouch so that I can make a nuissance of myself whenever, wherever.

And you do know that Brazil haven’t played yet but those Chermans continue to be furiously efficient even with a Jabulani ball at their feet.

You gotta love a World Cup…don’t you just!

Before you throw out the nothing you may as well enjoy a few laughs because it’s hard enough getting to the black hole in the first place.

I recently heard this little anecdote – A man is lost and approaches a local and proceeds to ask him if he knows the way to Caltuket. The local looks bemused and replies, “Yes I do but if I were you I wouldn’t start from here!”

Aarh life’s little journey.

I then stumbled upon this nifty little Zen phrase, ‘People like to ask about satori but I don’t encourage dirty talk like that” from Robert Allen’s book a 1000 paths to Zen. It makes me smile every time I read it.

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I still can’t finish book number eight even though I have started books nine and ten. It stymies me that I can’t finish number eight which is a great read and that is possibly why I just don’t appear to want to get to the end, which is problematic because now I am falling behind that 20 books read for the year target.

Oh well, you can only give it your best shot and then draw a line when the count down happens and random strangers begin to kiss you and wish you happy New Year.

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I have discovered the joys of sleeping with ‘white noise’ I bought an application from iTunes ‘Sleep Science’ for a dollar. Now I fall asleep to the sounds of nature, primarily in my case the falling rain and the gushing wind. I recommend it.

And while I am recommending stuff let me mention Caviar’s Belgium Chocolate Mousse which is so good that it should come with a health warning.

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And I finally found out how to pronounce ‘Sj’ in Swedish, I am not going to tell you, go find your own Swede to help you say ‘sshh…Sjowall’

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And, and, and, is this the new ‘Blondie?’

A great site – impossible to describe cool – but they do try and it works.

The impossible cool.