Supa Lion Pitch invading, the Deadly Flying Falcons and how to vomit your stomach contents through your eyeball

So Sarah and I went posh at the Chester races. This meant that I wore a suit and an ironed shirt and made an attempt to rub off the gravy stain on my tie - and Sarah wore a dress. Sarah's sister would have been along for the ride as well but she was too busy vomiting up her entire body through her nostrils. Oh how we bemoaned her fate - safe in the certain knowledge that she had succombed to one of nearly two million deadly viruses brewing inside of our kids - just waiting to attack some unsuspecting rellie when they visited. Oh hindsight is a wonderful thing. But 48 hours later and a conversation goes like this:

"herghhhhhhh.....erghhhhhhhh....ugghhhh...sperghhhhhhh...."

"Stop moaning...stop yer moaning Tom - you'll wake the kids..."

"Oh my God -I think I'm dying Sarah...erghhhhhhhhhhh"

"Try to moan less...can you try to moan less?"

If you could suck yourself into a blackhole of vomit - then I was swirling in it's Event Horizon - perpetually trapped in a vomit loop of doom for the whole of Sunday night. Things were made only marginally worse when Declan somehow ended up in the bedroom with me (whilst Sarah was wrestling with her own inner vomit turmoil). That bit of the night went something like this...

"Erghhhhh...get off me Declan...go away...I'm dying...back to bed...back into bed..."

"Come on! Come on! Ghhhhhhhhh Ghhhhhhhhh...WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Which roughly translated means - Get up Dad - it's 4 in the morning for crying out loud! It's time to get up and watch the flashing box again! Need TV...need milk...I NEED MILK GODDAMMIT!"

Having never died (to my knowledge) I have never experienced Hell - or purgatory - but I have a feeling that I came pretty close to it that night.

But the races themselves they were great. The RAF parachuted in from three thousand feet which was a bit flash and the cast of Hollyoaks put on a fashion show. It woulda been more interesting the other way round - but that's the way life goes.

One of the lads from the RAF Falcons, who but ten minutes earlier, had been hurtling out the sky at terminal velocity was sipping a glass of champagne next to me and attracting the attention of an entire gaggle of tidy looking women. I myself stood idly sipping my booze and wondering why these girls seemed to be overlooking me. I asked my wife what the big attraction was... just because I couldn't jump out of a plane under enemy fire, land on a target dropzone with pinpoint accuracy and take out an enemy with relentless precision...but could they sit at a desk for nine hours and type on a keyboard? Could they drink a combination of wine and beer at the same time and still write with competence. Oh - Oh? They can? Crap. Well that's me out of a job.

Post the removal of my entire internal organs and stomach content over the week I was secretly rather looking forward to this weekend.

And Lo Fintan and I set off at 8am yesterday for the big smoke. Headed into the wild craziness - the beast that consumes all who enter it and spits out raw husks where humans once stood (yeah - you ever tried commuting there for longer than a year?!) - and so we boarded the Virgin Voyager - destination London.

I came armed with provisions to make the SAS proud. Travel Connect 4, a glo in the dark T-rex to assemble, a dinosaur magazine to read, 250 milligrames of yer finest jelly beans (orange, lemon - no marshamallow), DVD player, an array of DVDs including but not limited to Dinosaur Kings, The Land before Time, Barney (that purple b*stard!), Wallace and Grommit and Flash Gordon (I'm slowly converting him to the classic stuff!).

I met my Dad at London Bridge at midday and there we surprised my Grandad by running up to him and telling him we were off to the footie. Now - I did have some advice from Deborah my sister-in-law in Ireland that running up and surprising anyone over eighty is not medically advisable...bah...what does she know?! At which point my wife pointed out she was a Doctor. Either way - four generations of the family were gonna walk on the pitch at the New Den, get photographed with the team at 3pm kick-off and then watch a cracking match before meeting the man of the match and having their photo taken with him and getting the match ball. For any Millwall fan it's almost unheard of to be offically invited on to the pitch - usually we just run on and wait for the cops to chase us off. So this was something really special. 125 years of Millwall - from humble beginnings from a Jam factory team on the Isle of Dogs to the accolades and trophies we know today...ahem. Cue tumbleweed!

Either way - what a day - met all the Millwall legends and then the Director came down to ask my Grandad how he'd managed to support the club for eighty five years without losing the will to live. The answer lies somewhere between pigheaded stupidity, wondrous unquestioning delusion / devotion and a compulsory lobotomy that every fan of non premiership teams suffer as a matter of course through-out their life - still - wouldn't change it for the world!

So now I'm off to check out the new Kindle the missus bought me and see if I can download my book on it yet. Not far off...and then the world will be mine! All mine!