Sororizing with the enemy

Today brings a confluence of 2 venerable institutions: the Puddle Christmas party and the Scumton match. The JoniBobs are hosting the party as they did last year, and special gifts have been laid on (at great expense and palaver) for us special people. There may be cutting/sticking and other arty endeavours: I might reprise my role of last year and go round the room drawing everyone's portrait. Hopefully this year I'll do ErinsMum's necklace in a less embarrassing place, it looked like she had a big willy last time.

The Scumton match is a traditional time of joy for the sister cities of Portsmouth and Southampton. Only 20 miles apart, one has always played host to the Navy, the other to the Merchant Navy. Then we broke through their picket lines in the 70's and they said those terrible things about our Sandra at the wedding or whatever it was and the animosity has never waned since. The two football teams rarely meet due to mostly being in different divisions, but on those rare occasions, the songs are louder and ruder, the hand gestures larger and more medically graphic, and any of the locals with those little brick walls around the front garden knows that the half-bricks will be knocked off the top to be used as ammunition.

Last time they visited here in April 2005 I was but a mere 8-cell blastocyst so my memories of the event are dim. However it is recorded that Pompey won 4-1, the Scummer fans were kettled outside the ground for an hour while the police tried to clear the route to the train station and many Pompey fans were lying in wait behind garden walls with half-bricks and dubious motives. Once the visiting fans had been escorted away, the home fans had an extra riot and trashed some nearby streets for no real reason.

The court cases for these domestic disturbances were long and numerous.

We delivered some beer and goodies to the JoniBobs to save having to carry it all later, and watched the policeman herding the Pompies along: they'd erected metal fences across some of the roads so they could keep the 3000 visiting fans completely separate from the Blues. Once they were all in and the match had started, we wandered out again. All was quiet on the streets as the lines of police vans waited for the end of the match, but we could hear many cheeky songs and ditties from the crowd.

Once Jof had finished putting on her makeup we walked round to the JBs where it was already in full swing.

We did some art, had food, played lego, chased each other round and round the house with aircraft carriers and argued. JoniBobsDad started to design a lockable soundproofed padded room for us but with luck it won't be ready for a while. Erin circulated, attaching stickers and post-it notes to every adult bottom she could find. Then Santa came when we weren't watching and left us all a giant stocking of goodies under the tree.  

We piled in and we all got head torches! They're very bright so we all went into the garden and hunted for Santa. We invented a method for detecting, trapping and killing him which was possibly unfair as he'd given us excellent pressies in the same stockings as last year. We looked everywhere and JoniBobsDad had to shout "Santa is not in the incinerator" at us. There was a bit of kick-boxing action with the inflatable boxing gloves which resulted in Erin getting a whack in the face and a lot of dancing until it was finally time to go home. I'd better sleep well - early start tomorrow for the YMCA.