I woke up last Saturday feeling almost normal. Well, as normal as I can be. After 11 days of having a cold, the longest of my entire life by some distance it was nice to be able to breathe through my nose and say “white rabbits” in my usual ropey accent rather than sounding like I was talking with a mouthful of socks.

Apologies if you’re eating but I have produced so much snot of late I was cussing that it isn’t a tradable commodity as I’d be seriously minted by now. Elon Musk needs to invent a car that runs on it.

I needed a treat after all that lurgy so it was off to Jack & Ada’s for poached egg on toast. There was the usual friendly welcome from Paul although I was thrown by being given 5 choices of tea. English Breakfast tea got the nod and it went down a storm.

I got home and did the usual thing of fannying around and not paying any attention to the clock. Before I knew it, it was too late to walk to Bescot Stadium. Taxi time which arrived very quickly. I’ve been lucky with taxi drivers of late but this one wanted to chat. Oh he really did, starting with his 1st question which threw me. “What’s the best way?” Aren’t taxi drivers supposed to have the knowledge?

“I don’t know, I usually walk there.” He asked again. I reiterated the walking thing. He asked for a third time. I gestured behind me and said “I normally walk that way.” At the bottom of the road he asked “left or right”. I was starting to think I was in a taxi version of 15-1. “Left, and maybe go along the Broadway” I offered. “The Broadway?” he countered “that’s the long way. We’ll go the other way.” It’s so nice to be asked your opinion and then get ignored. A discussion about kick off time followed and then onto one about ticket prices and he couldn’t get his head around the fact that I had a season ticket and didn’t have to pay on the day.

By now I had reached my limit of words that I set myself to say to others in a day and we hadn’t even got through Caldmore. He dropped me off on the main road rather than up the drive like most taxi drivers do, but had he done so he could have squeezed in another discussion so it was probably for the best.

I was shivering a bit as I walked into the Bescot Bar which I put down to the tail end of the lurgy still lingering. I’d announced the day before to my work colleague Matty that I was gong to watch the match sober, which really isn’t recommended but with that shiver I grabbed a coffee instead and saw Jayne Harris who was in no hurry to go into the stand so I stopped to chat with her.

I had no idea that Sutton had scored until an influx of Walsall fans arrived in the bar pretty much all singing from the same “this is shocking” hymn sheet.

In the end I didn’t bother going in the stand at all. I stayed in the bar, and actually saw 2 or 3 people that I hadn’t seen at a game in a good while. Conversely I didn’t see any of the people that I sit with in the stand week in week out.

Afterwards I walked up to Wednesbury Road to get the bus into town and it took a good 20 minutes for one to arrive even though 5 different services serve that stop. It was like they were on strike again. I felt for the lad at the stop who said he left the game at 4.30 and thus had an even longer wait for the 11A to eventually arrie.

Anyway we had equalised late on so after a quick McDonalds it was off to meet Craig in The Oak Inn. The non drinking part of the day was over and this place does three different versions of Thatcher’s cider so it was straight onto the Cloudy Lemon variety.

They have started doing live music now at The Oak and I was really looking forward to an Oasis tribute act which for some reason I’d got in my head as being mid April. During the fannying around earlier in the day I’d double checked when it was only to discover it was the previous Friday, which if you recall from the last blog was when I was at the Scotch Egg festival in Wolverhampton with the heavy cold. Perhaps it was for the best that I’d missed the night as any attempt to sing along to Don’t Look Back In Anger with that cold would have come out as “though thally can wait, thee knowth it’th too late ath theeth walking on by”. And nobody wants to hear that.

We hit the quiz machine as is standard procedure and were absolutely robbed by the Pointless game. Sports commentators was the round. We went for Simon Brotherton which scored 7 whilst the opponents went for Harry Carpenter who scored 1. We were not having it. How did less people say Harry Carpenter? Fummin.

There was live music on this night but at the moment it was jukebox selections and someone had put on “Blurry” by Puddle OF Mudd, we knew not who it was but we saluted him/her/they (delete as applicable if you’re reading).

“Is there a turn on at Katz tonight” asked Craig. My hearing isn’t the best and I thought he said “is Eternal on at Katz tonight?” God imagine that. A pint of AJ’s and a flirt with Louise Redknapp. I reckon I could impress them with my rendition of Oh Baby I. Jase, if you’re reading please make this happen.

We moved onto The Registry where we learned that it was a sailor party night. A quick glance around the room revealed nobody dressed in that attire, which was slightly disappointing. Music was decent in here including two songs by The Specials but there were no sea shanties. On the way out a lass walked in dressed as a sailor. I’m usually late to the party for most things but for once I was early. That’s one for the calendar.

Next up was Black Country Arms as I really wanted a pint of Stonehenge “Sign Of Spring”, a seasonal green beer which is only available in March/April. It was divine and a delight to be putting something green in my mouth rather than it coming out my nose. We had music from AC/DC and Def Leppard in here, the music is always good in The BCA. Except for a bizarre incident in 2012 where they played 2 UB40 songs which still haunts me.

Finally we moved onto Katz. Thee was no sign of Eternal. We grabbed SeaCider Honeycomb cider (delightful) and headed upstairs for retro gaming action. Craig dicked me at both Ms Pac-Man and Pleasure Goal. It might have been a different story had Louise been about to impress but Jamie Redknapp’s punditry at my performance on Pleasure Goal would not have been complimentary.

The last action of the night saw Craig head to Wishbone to sort out the kebab meat and chips whilst I headed to Ablewell to request a taxi, which in a nice bit of luck they both arrived together so it was home to munch with minimal hanging around. Another cracking day.