Thanks a Million

The past two weeks have been difficult in our household. There hasn’t been a lot of cooking, sleeping or much of anything going on.

You see, I am a bit of a sports fanatic where my country is concerned and, as you all well know, my boys weren’t doing too bad at the European Football Championships.

Not that I expected too much at the start of the tournament – they hadn’t qualified that easily – but I was more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt . . .  and not only because orange is a very flattering colour.

So, the whole family went to watch game number one against Italy.

We were amazed, we were surprised and in total awe. What a game, what beautiful football, it was ’88 all over again.

The orange blood started to heat up . . . can they do the same against “les bleus?”

The next few days there was only time for work, TV, newspapers and the internet.

I checked every sports page of every possible paper worldwide on a daily basis, saw all sports programs even remotely connected to football, and didn’t get to sleep way past midnight.

I would get up early to check all related internet sites, just so I wouldn’t miss a thing.

Game two arrived. My superstition got the best of me, so I wore the same blouse, the same pants, even the same knickers . . . just in case.

And they did it again! Goodbye to number one and number two of the world. Ha!

By game three the family was starting to get bowel problems since home cooking had been out the door for quite some time; our youngest was running on adrenaline fumes dressed in orange day and night, and even the dog had learned to partly bark our national anthem.

Mayhem!

And then even our benchboys kicked butt.

That was it! We were all sure the championship was ours, and all other games were just a formality.

As the quarterfinals came closer, and the Russians more threatening, I started to doubt our lions again.

Would they be able to pull another bunny out of the hat?

I must have lost two kilos over that last week. I grew bags under my eyes and my orange shirt started to stink.

My partner was starting to feel like a football widower (sorry hon); the girls started to believe this football-thing was a matter of life or death . . . I’m telling you, it was getting too much.

So, herewith I would like to thank the whole Dutch National Football Team for their poor performance at the quarter finals.

Thank you guys, I honestly don’t think my family would have lasted throughout the finals without serious injuries either physically or emotionally.

Tonight we had a nice big healthy home cooked meal, a red and orange load is on our washer, the kids got to bed on time and maybe so will I . . . unless…. well you see, Wimbledon is on, which is just ok to watch as a nice little warm-up, but then it’s the Tour de France, and I’m sure there are quite a few orange bikers that are yellow shirt material.

Of course, right after that are the Olympics where we have our rowers, swimmers, hockey team, someone in athletics, bet ya we can get some medals there.

Maybe I should just surf the net a bit and get some details . . .