… can only be described as “disturbed sleeping patterns” just recently, going to bed at 23:30 was never going to be a good idea. By about 01:00 I’d given up the struggle and by about 02:30 I was up and about, working. I must be feeling better, to say the least.

Round about 09:00 I went back to bed for a couple of hours. By 12:00 I was up and about again working and at 13:00 I attacked a bowl of porridge. Even more surprisingly, it managed to stay down.

Another even more surprising thing is that I managed to attack a little bit of tidying up. Not much, it has to be said, but the fact that I was able to do something is already … errr … something.

It was such a beautiful afternoon that I opened all of the windows in here.

I was tempted to go for a walk, but then I had another thought instead. I carried on doing some work and then at 17:00 I girded up my loins and hit the streets.

It’s that time of the year again.

The Baie de Mont St Michel and the area around here has the highest tides in Europe. Not quite on the Bay of Fundy scale but impressive all the same.

This weekend the tidal coefficients are the highest of the year and the sea right now is the farthest out that we are likely to see it.

It’s certainly impressive.

In the beautiful weather it was a sweaty trudge through the streets and a weary climb up the hill, and even though I took my time I was at the Stade Louis Dior in good time for the match against FC Mantois 78.

I’ve not seen them before, and they are currently adrift at the foot of the table. So I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to see them this time

Having witnessed US Granville’s dramatic loss of form just recently that has seen them plummet down the table like a Led Zeppelin, I knew exactly what the outcome would be.

From the kick-off, it was clear that the US Granvillais left-back was playing in a match on his own. In the first five minutes I counted three times when he wandered miles away from his opponent, allowing his opponent to get in behind him.

After 10 or so minutes, I mentioned to my neighbour that he is going to cost the team dear if he doesn’t concentrate on his game – at that point he was a good 25 metres away and in front.

Sure enough, just a couple of minutes later, the left-back was miles out of position as the n°7 soared down the wing and put in a cross to the centre where a forward slotted the ball home.

And he kept it up too. Another ball down the wing, another cross, a header onto the post this time. I’ve not seen anything like this for years. We had no coaching whatever at school but even at Primary School it was drilled into us by our 11 year old team captains not to let our attackers get between us and the goal, even when they didn’t have the ball.

After half-time there was no change whatever.

It took 60 minutes for the coach to realise the problem. He eventually took off the n°3 and the defence tightened up – but only just a little.

US Granville pulled one back too. A quick throw-in, a long one into the penalty area from the right-back with the long throw – which caused uproar from the Mantois players and some of the crowd who are clearly unaware that you can’t be offside from a throw-in (or a goal kick either for that matter).

And then Granville pushed forward for a winner. And who knows what might have happened had we not had a moment of total madness as we entered into injury time.

The Mantois goalkeeper’s kicking was dreadful and they were just wild, aimless lunges down the field. One totally aimless kick right upfield fell to a US Granvillais defender, totally alone and unmarked with no-one anywhere near him. He turned to face upfield, took his time, and took a really good hard kick – straight into the midriff of a Mantois player charging down on him about 20 yards away.

You’ve no need for me to tell you what happened after that. The attacker controlled the ball, took half a dozen steps forward, rounded the keeper and that was that.

All hopes that Granville had of catching the game disappeared into the sunset.

A long painful walk back here – in time to watch a top-of-the table match in the Welsh Premier League between Y Barry and Cei Connah. Winner takes all tonight, and so quite obviously we had a draw.

A good goal from Jonathan Hood for Barry was cancelled out by a goal from Michael Bakare for the Nomads.

Many people saw Bakare’s goal as controversial but not me, not the referee and not those people equipped with slow-motion facilities and a camera behind the goal. Mike Lewis in the Barry goal was clearly “fouled”, but by his own player who pushed him hard into the patch of the Connnah’s Quay n°10. When the highlights go on line, I’ll post a link.

It was an exciting match that pulsated from end-to-end but Connah’s Quay had the better of it and the Barry woodwork knew all about it. A couple of goal-line panic-stricken clearances too but the Nomads couldn’t get the bal over the line.

So now it’s rather late, I’m rather tired but I’ve kept on going. And if that’s not impressive, seeing as how I’m feeling, then I don’t know what is.T