On Fighting and Grown Men Chasing Balls

“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.” 
-Robert Frost

Hey guys :)

This will be another short entry I'm afraid, as I just finished one of the few day-shifts I have this month. Most of the time I work nights, and I hardly feel like writing after one of those shifts--I just want to watch some TV and go to sleep. As I mentioned before, the schedule I'm working in June is heavy. Apart from the World Cup there's the US Open of Golf, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, the World Cup of Hockey, the F1 season, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rugby Challenge Cup, the PDC World Darts Championships, the Belmont Stakes and so on... There's just an awful lot of sports going on. 

It's been great, though, and not as demanding as I had initially feared. Don't get me wrong--it's tough. I just thought I'd be more mentally challenged and searching for words, as opposed to just being physically knackered. Maybe I'm growing as a writer, or maybe I'm just getting more used to the pace. Either way, it's a great experience.

You can sense the World Cup is right around the corner in the streets. Everyone's selling flags and face paint and all that crap, and people are buzzing with excitement. White City's multicultural status is very visible, with more foreign flags attached to cars than English ones. Algeria seems to be the preferred team around here, so I'll just keep my being Belgian to myself for now.

I've only just recovered from the flu, an illness that was brought into our appartment last week. Living in close quarters with eight people means it was inevitable for everyone to get ill at some point, and I too couldn't escape. It's all good though--after three days that weren't as bad as they could have been I was feeling all better. 

Unfortunately I got into a bit of a fight on the first day after I had recovered. I have to specify: I broke up a fight, and people didn't appreciate that. Luckily the police were right around the corner, and I was free to go after a couple of questions.

What happened was this: An old lady (50-ish, five-foot-nothing) got vocally upset over the fact the woman standing in line in front of her appeared to have just one basket of groceries in the supermarket. When it was her turn, however, she invited over her husband who had two full carts of stuff, and I swear to God, it took them over 20 minutes to unload all of that crap. Now I couldn't be bothered, but had I known the situation woud play out like that, I'd have picked a different queue. 

The lady felt the same way, and she wanted the couple to know. She told them several times and asked them to refrain from similar behaviour in the future, and the husband clearly didn't care for her message. I told the lady not to bother, as the guy clearly felt like he did nothing wrong and more words wouldn't achieve anything. She agreed, but went back at it 30 seconds later (I have to point out there were several more people standing in the same queue echoing my sentiments).

Out of nowhere, the husband suddenly hit her. Right in the face. This was an old lady I could have lifted with three fingers, and he smacked her right across the face. I have never been a fighter and I didn't feel like becoming one, but at this point I had to intervene. I'm not sure why I thought he would just comply if I held him back, but I did. Naturally, that's not what happened--he came at me. His wife didn't seem to mind her husband was beating an old lady, and I just lost it. I'm not going to go into detail over what happened next because I'm not particularly proud of it, and I am very happy other people intervened in a timely manner. This supermarket is stationed in a shopping centre so both security and the police arrived quickly, and once they came in the lights inside my head went back on.

Long story short, the dozens of people standing around agreed all I had done was protect an old lady, who came out of the entire ordeal relatively unscathed. The same goes for the guy, who if I may be so bold got lucky people actually intervened. Again, I feel bad over what happened and I'm not proud of it. But I will not stand for grown men hitting an old lady over a row in the supermarket. Not under any circumstances. 

Thus concludes the tale of how I punched a guy in the supermarket. London is funny guys.

I've given surfboard advice to two different persons in the past 24 hours, so it must be summer again. I haven't actually seen the ocean since August of last year and realistically speaking I can no longer call myself a surfer, but people apparently haven't gotten the memo yet. I'm still hoping I might be able to find some time to travel down to France for a week and see some old friends again (my 5'6'' Broadsword being one of them), but it's unlikely. For some reason my mind has wandered to Dominic quite a bit in these last few days (when I wasn't working at least), and I'm just not sure how I'd cope with that once I get near the water. Maybe it would be a fitting way to honour my old friend. Maybe I'm making way too much of this.

By the way, I had to write about J-Lo again today. This confirms we've entered the period we refer to as the 'funny season,' unless Turner Media was bought out by TMZ. In which case I'll be handing in my letter of resignation on the spot.

I hope you're all doing great. I'm sorry if I haven't been very communicative since I got back from Belgium (I haven't Skyped with my dad in weeks) but things have just been insanely busy. Know that I still think of you constantly, and please don't hesitate to reach out. You might not get an answer instantly, but you'll get it sooner or later.

I wish you all a happy World Cup, and I hope to God everyone survived the Belgian supercell I've been reading about. It's been nothing but clear skies and t-shirt weather down here I'm afraid. 

Good night y'all. Talk soon.


Song of the Day: Let's go for a change of tune and bring in an absolute classic featuring one of the best guitar riffs (and intros) ever written. 
Carry on Wayward Son - Kansas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0