I’ve mentioned before that the mind is a strange place. Take last night. I was sat at home with my husband and we were talking about work. (We weren’t physically at work and so of course we were talking about it.) All of a sudden and out of nowhere a song came into my head. ‘Stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon . . . . ‘ One minute we were talking about iPhone apps and the next, Stop the Flippin’ Pigeon.

I couldn’t even remember where it came from; just the wretched song. We Googled it immediately and there they were – Dastardly and Mutley. All the way from my childhood.

Of course after throwing me a few pleasant memories my mind felt it had to compensate. In the early hours of the morning I dreamed I was being digested by a large snake. Swings and roundabouts.

I guess the World Cup starts on Saturday. Drums fingers on desk. Stares out of the window at the cars going past sporting England flags. I wish I could muster up a bit of enthusiasm but I can’t. Of course I want England to win. Of course I do. But I know that at some point soon I’ll be so sick of the damn thing that I’ll secretly wish for them to be knocked out so I don’t have to hear about it anymore. When that thought comes I’ll keep it to myself.

My husband, of course, can’t wait. He’ll be commandeering the remote for the next few weeks, while I sit upstairs reading. I suggested to him the other day that the best football matches are the ones where your team is losing right up until the last few minutes. And at the last possible moment they score twice and win. Apparently they’re not the best games; a sentiment echoed around the office the other day.

One thing I do like about the World Cup is the party atmosphere. Everyone (apart from me apparently) will be tuning in and watching the same matches at the same time. When England score we’ll hear the cheers drifting in through the open windows, cars will toot their horns and strangers will nod and smile and comment on the game. It isn’t often that we have this sense of belonging and collective pride.

I’ll leave you with this ad from Carlsberg.

We’re off to Whitby for the weekend to get some sea air!

Last night we went to visit my in-laws. We spent a pleasant evening with my husband’s mum, dad and nan, drinking tea and chatting and then headed back home. On the way back we’d just reached Salford and the car started to judder. I was about to start cursing the mechanics who fixed the car last week but it turned out to be ‘just a flat’. This wasn’t the best news as far as I was concerned. It was freezing cold, we were in the middle of Salford and I had a bag of Mini Eggs waiting for me at home.

I mentioned that we’d have to phone a breakdown service – secretly I was hoping for the Knights of the Road – do you remember the RAC marketing campaign? But no, my very own knight sprang out of the car into action. He was only briefly interrupted by the four large containers of bulbs in the boot. So there I stood in the middle of Salford with four pots of tulips while Lord Levy changed the wheel.

We were up and running again in no time, the heater turned up full blast, me all laughing and impressed and him all nonchalant and ‘I have done this before you know’. When we got home we shared the Mini Eggs.

We weren’t prepared for the frost this morning. The car was all frozen over and we attempted to clear the windows with a bit of cardboard we found in the glove box. Lord Levy drove to work leaning to the left to see through the windscreen and my fingers bore holes in the upholstery. The air was blue and not just with the cold.