The green shoots are getting stronger

A much more positive day all round. Most importantly, Ottawacker Jr., having spent the previous 48 hours in bed imitating someone recently bitten by a tsetse fly, perked right up mid-afternoon. He even managed a plate of chicken and rice in the evening. The photosensitivity seems to have more or less disappeared. He has lazarused from his bed. Mrs. Ottawacker is also on the mend; she is still a little run down, but that could be down to her having to live with me. It’s the constant excitement, you see. And I am feeling much better too. I still have the odd wobble – but managed to cook the chicken and rice. And eat some of it too.
 
Ottawacker Jr. had to pull out of the tournament he was supposed to be playing in today. I had a quick look to see the results and saw his team had lost three and drawn one of their allotted four games. The difference a competent keeper makes can’t be overstated. And talking of competent keepers, the world’s best made a complete hash of a routine save to give Southampton the lead at Anfield. Just goes to show you. Nobody is infallible. That game really was a game of two halves. In the first half, Liverpool were perhaps as bad as I have ever seen them (and I remember Istvan Kozma and Julian Dicks) and were losing 1-0 at the break; they picked up in the second half, thanks to multiple substitutions and increased urgency, and won quite comfortably in the end. I still don’t know what to make of this season. The results have been, on the whole, magnificent; yet, there is still that nagging doubt that we are going to finish with nothing. I’m never happy.