07/10/2022
Early Thursday morning, you know it is early, because Lachlan was not even awake yet, lol jks he probably was, the grandparents made their way from their Edinburgh Hotel to Edinburgh Airport. After a short delay they enjoyed, we assume, their first flight into Europe, at least it was a scenic one.
After catching up on some sleep they touched down in Italy, Rome, where they will be following the Lachlan tailored FIK Italia tour for the next week. Now, where are the pizzas? It was sunny, so sunny in fact they had to buy hats, just like Lachlan.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a war memorial located in Rome under the statue of the goddess Roma at the Altare della Patria. It is a sacellum dedicated to the Italian soldiers killed and missing during war.
Meanwhile, back in Glasgow, Lachlan was exhausted from the responsibility of protecting the neighbourhood and generously loaned Eloise his spider suit. Eloise wanted to make sure the neighbourhood knew there was a new spider in town.
The grandparents, had no issues, finding that pizza.
Eloise had been so excited for Thursday evening, she could hardly contain her excitement. The time had come. She was off to watch her first professional football match with Dad, well besides all those ones at Park 17. We layered up, grabbed as many snacks as we could and headed to the train station. We hoped they had cleared the morning cows from the train tracks.
Lachlan was happy to have some alone time with Super Mum, also with Big Sister out of the equation he had a full selection of toys and headed straight for the forbidden purse, a gutsy move.
We had a bit of a journey ahead of us, three trains were the quickest way to get to the stadium. “Three trains, one, two, three, three trains Mum, we need three trains”, football and trains, Eloise was a happy girl.
After our three-train extravaganza, we dashed through a questionable park. The skies started to open but I could not get Eloise to put her hood on, “no Dad, no, me like rain, my favourite”.
Perhaps fueled by sugar, we were both at peak levels of excitement as we approached Scotland’s National Stadium, Hampden Park. Eloise picked up a wee Scottish flag as we made our way around the stadium to where mighty Robbo and Rachael were looking down upon us.
Hampden Park, often referred to as Hampden, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The 51,866-capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. It is the normal home venue of the Scotland national football team and was the home of club side Queen’s Park for over a century… The stadium houses the offices of the Scottish Football Association (SFA) and Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL). Hampden has hosted prestigious sporting events, including three European Cup / Champions League finals, two Cup Winners’ Cup finals and a UEFA Cup final. Hampden is a UEFA category four stadium and it is served by the nearby Mount Florida and King’s Park railway stations.
The stage was set for the Scottish women facing up against Austria, they had the home ground advantage and the weather could not be more Scottish. We were thankful to be undercover. It was a tense affair and we overheard it was a must win Women’s World Cup Qualifier. In the 70th minute Scotland subbed on their very own Sam Kerr, she was good, but not quite the real deal.
Eloise’s favourite player started as the Scottish goalkeeper in the first half, in the second half her favourite player changed to the Austrian goalkeeper, I think it was because they did the biggest kick, she does love a big kick, she enjoyed the noise the crowd made for a goal kick. Eloise was bouncing up and down trying to keep up with the match. She was still on a high from her wee flag purchase and made sure she waved it for the whole match. Eloise liked how lots of people had matching flags. It was still goalless as we left just before the 90 minutes with an exceptionally tired girl, probably from all the screaming and flag waving.
It was an hour on the trains home and they only departed hourly. Just before the 90 minute whistle, we dashed to the train station to start the trip home. There was no chance of lasting through extra time and potentially penalties, plus we were keen to avoid the mad rush. At the train station with other families who had made the same call we celebrated the girls going ahead in extra time. “For Abigail Harrison and Scotland, the moment was worth waiting for. This World Cup playoff semi-final had rumbled into extra time before Harrison stooped to head in Erin Cuthbert’s corner… Scotland will return to Hampden Park on Tuesday, when they will face the Republic of Ireland for a possible berth in Australia and New Zealand next summer”.
After a lot of fun and consuming a few hundred grams of sugar the effect on Eloise started to go non-linear. It was well past both our bedtimes, on a school night, we had a long trip home and we were running out of snacks.
It was only a couple of trains home, luckily we made the connection as we did not want to be stranded for an extra hour. On our final train, Eloise finally clonked out after a heroic effort, still holding her new flag in a firm grip. What a great night!
The trickiest part was the final walking leg home carrying a 14kg sack of potatoes. It was just after 23:00 and a massive adventure for the two of us. Now the big question is, do we go again next Tuesday, Scotland vs Ireland?
Friday morning, Eloise was catching Super Mum and Lachie up to speed about her adventure with Dad last night. Lachlan could not believe it when Eloise whipped our her Scottish flag, look at his face. He was very jealous, Eloise, being the thoughtful big sister she is, told Lachie, he cannot play with the flag yet, because he is “too little and might blow away”, she kindly mentioned she would keep it until he was bigger. After waving the flag around in his face, Lachie was not impressed.
Probably after a nice sleep-in, as there was no grandchild alarm clock, the grandparents tackled Rome.
The Temple of Antoninus and Faustina is an ancient Roman temple in Rome, which was later converted into a Roman Catholic church, the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Miranda or simply “San Lorenzo in Miranda”. It is located in the Forum Romanum, on the Via Sacra, opposite the Regia. The temple was constructed by the Emperor Antoninus Pius, beginning in 141 AD.
Friday evening, the Glaswegians were gutted, “Eurovision fans in Scotland have been left stunned after Glasgow lost out to Liverpool in the bid to host next year’s event”. At least the Scottish had not lost their sense of humour. Perhaps a good excuse to get a match in at Anfield.
The British are still in mourning as a “pilot has flown more than 250 nautical miles to create an outline of the Queen’s profile on a map”.
Great blog! Footy adventure looked epic!