Long time, no write. We are well into the second year of our stay and all is well. The school year and football season are underway and we enter the second cycle of seasons. It’s a great temperature at the moment, perhaps for one more month, then grey, grey, grey and cold for a few months, if last year is anything to go by.
It has been great fun to write the blog and to get reactions, public and private, but now I am allowing the sun to set on it.
This was from our half-term holiday last week on an island in the south of the country. A fantastic, rustic resort.
Internet access here is not entirely reliable. Not only can it be entirely down for hours, some websites can mysteriously become unavailable, like this gentle, innocent blog last week. Perhaps something to do with http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/24/vietnam-bloggers-go-on-trial
That doesn’t make it easier to blog but the main reason for stopping now is that my life is being taken over by youth football. I’m running the Hanoi Youth Football League, www.hyfl.org, which has been somewhat demanding as we get 4 age groups up and running for the season.
I’ve ended up in some unusual situations in the course of my duties too. One of the most surreal was supervising the moving of some goalposts between pitches. It had to be done at night in order to avoid the traffic and the league’s administrator texted me at 9 to say that they were on their way. I rushed to the pitch in time to see the approaching headlights and the goalposts almost tear down an awning.
It turned out that the driver and his assistants were rolling drunk. The driver leapt out of the van and ran over to remonstrate with the car park attendant (for some unknown reason), giving off the international male signals for “Do what I say or I’ll slap you”. Watching them unload the goalposts was like watching newborn foals trying to pole vault. “Clumsy” doesn’t even cover it halfway. The posts wobbled wildly and were dropped off the van then lifted over the fence, as your brave photographer kept his distance.
And of course by then they had turned off the floodlights…
Anyway, after no apparently serious injuries, the goals could be slid into place and are now used by the league.
The driver (who had not sobered up) approached us to say that the job had been considerably more dangerous than he had anticipated. Yes, well, crossing town with two unsecured goalposts after a skinful is like that. He demanded to renegotiate the price and his crowning argument was that “the police might have stopped me!” He had his goons with him and I didn’t fancy a physical contest so we coughed up more money. (Yup, that’s what your registration fee is going on, HYFL parents :p )
Bye for now
Tim
So what are YOU going to do? 