Greetings from Cleehtorpes!! With Tarzan safely landed at a secret location somewhere in Spain the reins of the Captains Blog have been temporarily handed over to me Mrs H, 'The Wife', Fi, Fo (to close Friends), Fiona or just plan old mum.
What a whirlwind the last few days have been we have hardly had time to catch our breath. I can't believe that it is just over a week since myself, all the family and our close friends made the trip to Wembley. It is a rare occasion that my family, including Christain's mum and dad and brother get the chance to see each other, so we were determined to enjoy our time together in London. Mum and Dad travelled down with my sister and her two children, and Christain's mum and dad and brother came in convoy from Cleethorpes.
Upon meeting at the hotel we embarked on Phase one of the Wembley trip. We all separated into our chosen groups and headed out for the afternoon. My sister lead the Natural History Museum party, which consisted of Christain's mum and dad, my nephew Harvey, Cameron and Issy, and Becky's two children Josh and Milly. After some careful consideration I decided that a trip across London with five children was something to be avoided !!! Instead I opted for the trip to Oxford St with my mum and dad and Hattie. Needless to say that both activities were fraught with stress and we were all glad to reconvene at the hotel later that evening.
More friends had now arrived including Jody, Jon and Ellis Shelley and our good friends Jason, Sarah and Zoe. On to Phase two of the Wembley trip - where to eat!! We had discovered an excellent Lebanese restaurant during last years not so successful trip to Wembley and both sets of parents had decided that it was best to 'stick to what you know' so headed off with Hattie, whilst the 'youngsters' went off to a Chinese restaurant near the stadium. An excellent night was had by all - now all that was left was to deal with Phase three of the Wembley trip THE GAME.
Morning came and as you can imagine emotions were running high. I was unable to speak for most of the day and opted for sunglasses fairly early on in an attempt to hide the tears!! I've been to many important games and witnessed some heart breaking results over the years and it never gets any easier. Football has completely consumed our lives and the lives of our families for 20 years. With it comes many amazing highs and inevitably some crushing lows. It is an emotional roller coaster, but the 'Hargreaves' love every minute of it and we were not quite ready to end the ride just yet!! So off we went, the children with suitably painted faces, waving their flags and singing all the way.
As everyone knows the result could not have gone any better and for the children to see their dad score at Wembley was the icing on the cake. Yes there were more tears, and I have to say that the 4 minutes of added time seemed more like 40 minutes. When the final whistle went it felt like a huge weighted had been lifted - what a relief and an amazing end to the season. We have made some very good friends at Torquay and to be with all the families including The Mansells and The Todds, who are such amazing people, was very special. It's been a tough year for many of them and to see everyone smiling and cheering made me cry again!!!
Since then we have all been on cloud 9 and now the boys can relax for a while an enjoy their success. As for the girls (wives, girlfriends and mums) we can relax for a short while as well safe in the knowledge that for at least a couple of weeks the boys will all be in a good mood!!
I will sign off for this evening as it's 9 o'clock and time to start rounding up the troops for bed. They are currently somewhere at the bottom of the garden with Grandma. On second thoughts perhaps I will leave them to it for a bit longer and enjoy a bit of peace and quite.
FH
PS I feel a little nervous I hope my blogging comes up to CH's extremely high standards. Oh well he's out of the country with no internet access so hey ho!!!
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