The ramblings of Keane Ingram

Nicky has been collecting Match Attax cards for a while now. Despite previously only showing a limited interest in football, he's now become very interested in it and we've been to see Southend play three times (each time he's been, Southend have scored three goals and won). With each pack of Match Attax you get a "Pro 11" card featuring a code which you can enter online and unlock digital cards to use online. The Champions League versions of these cards offer entry into a competition to be a mascot for a Champions League game. Nicky kept pestering me to enter these codes online, saying that he might win the star prize. As a cynical 36-year-old (the biggest prize I ever won was a set of Play-Doh from a local newspaper) I let him enter the codes, but told him that he was almost certainly not going to win anything.

So much to my surprise, a couple of weeks ago (the day we were traveling to Clacton) I got an email from Topps (the company who make Match Attax) with t…

We took the caravan up to Clacton for a long weekend to make sure it was ready for Glastonbury and the Isle of Wight. The weather was kind to us - we had sun practically all weekend and no rain, so no need to dry out the awning afterwards! The caravan is mostly OK, there is a leak from one of the waste pipes which needs fixing but it shouldn't be too difficult. I still don't like towing a caravan but I seem to be getting the hang of it, or at least not feeling quite so anxious whilst doing it.

The kids had a good time and enjoyed the entertainment in the evenings. We went to Walton-on-the-Naze one day and spent a little time on the beach, before finally getting to fly Rory's kite that he bought from Blackgang Chine last summer! It made a nice change to fly a kite that actually worked, usually they seem to have a mind of their own and just spin out of control but this one worked pretty well.

On Saturday I went for my first run in about a decade! I was surprised by how far I…