Yesterday morning we set off back to Prague for a few days, leaving our house just after the announcement was made that Nole (i.e. Novak Djokovic) was finally being sent back home from Australia. In my case, that was good news since it means that all of us tennis fans can now concentrate on the tournament itself (and, contrary to what the non-tennis pundits think, it was and is wide open this year – Nole was by no means a certainty) - but my travelling partner, one of his biggest fans as previously mentioned, spent most of the journey muttering rude words in various different languages under his breath, and generally being very unpleasant to everyone that spoke to him, especially me.
For sure this is not going to be the end of the Djokovic story – we will see how that pans out over the coming days - but personally (me being a Roger fan of course), and apart from everything else, I am cross that if Nole never wins another grand slam (and that may well be the case) we will always hear that ‘had he been allowed to play in Australia, he might have gained another one and beaten Roger/Rafa’s record’ and that will be really annoying for us fans. Let’s hope Roger or Rafa win one instead, since surely being the ‘GOAT’ ('Greatest of All Time') also includes behaviour off the court, and on that they win hands down, even without this latest Nole story (his fans already talk about what a shame it was that he hit the line judge with a ball at the 2019 US Open and got disqualified, as he could have won that one too – but didn’t).
Anyway, we may well forget about all three of the GOATs soon, as my personal feeling on the men’s tennis front is that one of the Russians will win most things for the next few years, and if it is not them, then it will probably be Zverev (who, whilst being German is, of course, Russian too) or Tsitsipas (who is... ah yes, at least half Russian). But there are always the other youngsters (and even ‘youngersters’) and, in the case of the Grand Slams in particular, outsiders too….
Our trip to Prague has been brought about partly due to Jan’s need to be in court this week (for work, not for anything that he has done) and partly in order to have our ‘booster’ – and, thankfully, that passed without incident this morning, when, for a change, we allowed plenty of time to find the place, swept in and out at speed, and were back home within an hour, which was a very good thing as it was absolutely freezing….
I have mentioned before how we have turned into wimps from spending so much time in the warmth of Marbella over the past two years. As usual nowadays, the shock to our systems when we arrived in minus whatever last night was huge, and that will, for sure, stop us from doing as much as we might have liked whilst we are here. With tennis and running outside out of the question, I have dusted off both of the apps that I used in the deepest darkest days of our Spanish lockdown in March 2020 and will be belly-dancing and ‘7-Apping’ every day that we are here, plus I am now through to my Day 17 of alcohol-free January, which I am presently planning to continue into February, so I am feeling almost saintly.
But only almost. I have read a lot about the benefits of doing these alcohol-free months (like I needed to - let's face it, it's not rocket science!), but I must say that, aside from all the obviously good things that going without alcohol brings about, such as sleeping better and having a clearer head in the morning, there IS a downside, and that is that I keep thinking that I have loads of calories in hand (from the lack of booze) so can eat more… and being stuck indoors with not too much to do means that I spend most of the time thinking about food. And God, sometimes the temptation to say ‘stuff it’ (literally), ‘I’m just going to eat and drink whatever I like and go into old age as a great fat cow’ is hard to resist. (English friends may recognise the style of the attached image by the late and great Beryl Cook, whose paintings I was obsessed with years ago, even managing to buy a limited print before they got way too expensive! Nowadays, I am thinking to model myself on her images rather than buy them...!).
You will have noticed that I have not yet mentioned the UK government. For some reason, when I am in Prague I seem to take less notice of what is happening there, but of course my Twitter monitoring each morning is keeping me up to date. Actually there is nothing too new – only more revelations about parties in Downing Street (honestly, it seems that life for BJ and his merry-men is just one big party), court decisions confirming that it was corrupt of the government to hand over yet another contract to one of the relevant Minister’s buddies (in this case Hand-on-cock’s) without a proper tender, BJ apparently ‘sheltering’ due to a ‘family member’ having Covid (probably a great aunt who lives in Cornwall or something, but a risk nonetheless), in other words hiding from the cameras until this latest round of scandals dies down - like I say, nothing too new. But at least we can look forward to the report from the 'independent' investigator, Sue Gray - who, if nothing else, will be able to tell Boris whether he attended any of these parties or not. And, as the jokes that have been doing the rounds recently have said, they must have been very good parties if he needs an independent investigator to tell him that.
Apparently today, the 17th of January, is the 'most depressing day' of the year in the UK (and blimey, it has had a lot of competition over the past few years!) I wonder if it is the same here in the Czech Republic - looking out at the dark grey sky and the rain/sleet that is pouring down I think it could be. Hey ho. Where's that bloody chocolate cake?
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