Just back from our holiday - boy was it stressful at times. Beekse Bergen was great but the first evening we had nothing planned food-wise so we decided to go into Tilburg and a McDonalds for the kids. The satnav sent us to one but that was at a pedestrianised area. There was a multi-storey carpark next to it, "you better go in there then!" was Elaine's annoyed comment (she had already said we should have odered pizza after I'd accidentally turned left into the middle lane of three - the middle lane was for oncoming traffic - luckily there was none at the time and no central reservation so I could skip over to the right lane). As I slowly drove in Jacob said we hit the [height] barrier. I didn't hear or feel anything so carried on slowly catching the low concrete beams with our roofbox. Luckily slow enough to be able to back out, the roofbox is quite flexible so just very minor scrapes. Problem was we'd already gone through the entrance so couldn't get out - and we couldn't drive round to the exit. It looked like having to empty the roofbox to get it off to drive round.

I pressed the button to ask for help but got no answer. Looked around for some kind of office and found some Dutch people paying to exit the car park. Luckily one of them spoke excellent English and I explained our predicament. She tried the button then said you have to ring "that number". Then she suggested she do it herself. Lovely lady managed to get the barrier opened so I could reverse out, almost backing into a bollard as I was quite flustered at this time.

Coming home we hit traffic at the Dartford Crossing and it was a hot day. After a stop for food and another because I was struggling to concentrate (lots of late nights) my nephew had said he was going to be sick. I was only told he felt sick so ignored the suggestion for going off motorway (not that we could for a while anyway) as it would add ages onto the time. "We need to pull over he's feeling sick". "I can't just pull over on the motorway unless an emergency"."RALF" an then some. For some reason Elaine had decided a paper carrier bag would be ok. Sick everywhere and I had to pull over to the hard shoulder so we could clean the back of the car as best we could.

Anyway on to the football. 

With Donnelly suspended I decided to stall versus Cove and change to early cross when going behind. We went 2-0 down after 35 minutes but pulled one back after 78. It was a close game but we were slightly the weaker side. The plus was our goal was scored by Fuller and the fact that Partick could only manage a draw. The minus was an injury to Slater.

The problem with the injury is that we were driving when the first game ran so I couldn't do anyting about it for the game versus Airdrieonians - to be fair I forgot it was match day until we were in Belgium. Luckily Slater didn't get another injury despite playing 45 minutes below 0 EL. It was a weird game with 6 of our 7 shots going to defenders or SL 12 MF Max Headroom (that's ironic considering what happened in Tilburg) but Donnelly did get another. I was hoping he could go off for a rest but we never got a three goal lead. 

The weekend puts us 2 points ahead of Partick Thistle but more importantly 13 points ahead of 5th place Aberdeen with only 6 games to go. As we are 20 points ahead of 7th placed Ross County we are sure of at least a play-off place.

Talking of Aberdeen, Ross has done an amazing job this season with a team that is bottom in both T11 and T17, although they have struggled since mid-season. Remember they started the season without enough cash to buy pre-season CP.

Another remarkable team is Berwick. Up to the end of the SESL Cup group campaign they only had 1 win (Cecil Cup) and 6 draws. In the league they were 0-3-13 at MSA. Since then they have won 7 (including their last 5) and lost just 1, and are now only 2 points behind Inverness.

Division 3 is incedibly close, especially for the play-offs: Forfar are 4th on 41 points, Aberdeen 5th on 39. Then teams have 33,32, 4 on 29, 3 on 28 and then 15th place Inverness on 26.

Hello from the Netherlands where I am currently at Beekse Bergen safari park near the end of our third day. It's been amazing. In a short while we will be driving the Efteling, a theme park with a fairy tale theme where we'll spend four nights before driving home via a Saturday night stop in France.

The SESL report will be brief as we continue what seems to be inevitable promotion. I think 3 more wins pretty much guarantees promotion as Forfar would have to win all 8 remaining league games. Connelly and Fuller still dominate the Boot awards which would put is in touching distance of 4000k. However Connelly is suspended for the game against Cove but a loss here would still keep us in first place.

I'd still like to know the starting places for over achievers to see roughly where we need to finish to have a chance.

Throwing it away.

I decided not to contest our SESL Cup game against Hearts for several reasons.

1. We probably don't need the extra cash and probably wouldn't win the cup anyway - the best we could hope for is a semi-final against Motherwell, Dumbarton or Fraserburgh. Assuming only 30k participation per week I project us to finish the season with around 3400k and we are well in the lead with Bronze Boot and Rookie Hot Shot for another 600k. And there's also Golden Gloves, Man of the Match, Over Achievers and Worst Shooter which are all possible. A lot would depend on when the awards were added andf when pre-season opened.

2. My keeper, Morrison, can play 9 of the last 10 league games. If he played today and we won it would only be 7. Throwing the last two Group games gave us enough EL to win the last four league games. I admit the next four are a tougher prospect but I didn't want to be in a position of having to throw a game against Forfar or Queens Park.

3. I go on holiday on Saturday and didn't want to be having to find time to do SESL Cup orders by Wednesday and then league orders for the Saturday after. I'm doing both Saturdays anyway but will have a week to tweak anything due to injuries or suspensions.