A glorious early winter's day so it was. And after icing the cake (the icing on the cake came later), we headed off to Spartans for 2 hours of training. A played a little football, chatted, made phone calls and generally enjoyed a stress free time cos I couldn't really do much. 

We went home for lunch and then the afternoon kicked into gear; to Laurie's to get him and cycle in a peleton to Ainslie Park; to be joined by Teodor and Leon and Edinburgh City v Stirling ' The Binos' Albion. Alex got stripped for his role as mascot; we got a tour of dressing room and to meet the manager and chairman, and then the party was swelled by Alex's grandparents, G and Granton's premier sailing yachting expert.(The JTs are playing on Sunday) A schoolboy error meant he actually paid double when I could have sneaked him in for free. Macaroni pies were consumed.

Alex skipped happily onto the pitch (1:37 in; you can see Pensioner at 1:36 if you know where to look) and soon were eating Haribo and were 1-0 down. Edinburgh's emergency loan signing spent last season with us where he was universally declared to to be useless; 19 minutes into his Edinburgh City career he'd indulged in that most infantile practice of scoring against your old club; tch...

We equalised before half time; the kids went off to play fitba in the 2nd half so me and Pensioner admired the JTs 18 year old loanee get lots of experience down the right wing and indeed nabbed the winner. A couple of goalmouth stramashes and decent save from Stirling's keeper and it was off to Javits to ply the kids with pizza. 

Their parents duly collected their kids; and me and the boys, her and G and my folks headed home for cake and I rattled together a chicken prawn tabulleh with a glass of chianti.

I went through to look for Alex around 8.30 and he'd already sneaked into bed; knackered and thrilled after his long day.

Folks left at night as did her and then only a couple of hours to blow balloons, do dishes, wrap presents....

Extra is Pensioner trying to get to grips with lower league football.