Bookshop

Time for a brisk walk into town this morning and a browse around Waterstones as you can see.

In the afternoon it was back up to Greenwich for the second weekend in succession, this time to referee Old Brockleians v Sheppey in the final Kent League Division 1 match of the season. This was full circle for me as my first ever Kent 1 was Brocks v Whitstable several years ago and today was my first Kent League Division 1 game since the disastrous knee injury in September 2013. It's been a long haul back with this being the first season since then that I've refereed regularly. I've had a couple of Division 2 games this season, last weekend was one of them, where the league champions were playing Greenwich. That turned out to be a closer game than expected.

And so it turned out today. Sheppey were already champions being unbeaten this season. They wanted to win to retain that record and Brockleians were determined to prevent them. The final score was 20-25 to Sheppey but it boiled up into a fascinating game as Brocks levelled the score at 20-20 only to concede a pushover try in the final 5 minutes.

Sheppey felt this was by far their toughest game of the whole campaign but were ecstatic with the win which rounded off their season in style. They will play in London Division 3 next year. Brocks took heart too, for pushing the runaway champions so close.

To top it all I had an adviser watching, doing to me what I've done to many people over the past three years! He was satisfied, I was pleased to perform again at this level and pleased to get it over with too. Been on my mind most of the week. I'm not sure how many more seasons I can referee at this level but I'll take each season as it comes.

Excellent post match hospitality and conversation with both sides and their supporters ensured the afternoon ended very pleasantly. Then it was home for the first Saturday night dinner since 12th March. All in all a very good day.