footy is in the air

There's a familiar excitement in the air...

Footy season is about to start here in Melbourne! After a few months off to enjoy the summer, the days get short, the nights get cold, and the city gets the urge to huddle together on hard cold seats as they throw out insults and encouragement in equal measure - sometimes at the players, sometimes at the umpires, mostly at each other! - at the glorious MCG.

I love it. There's an energy that lights up this city when it's in the throes of the AFL football season. Half the newspapers are filled with it. Everyone has an opinion as to who'll win the flag. New heroes are born on the patch of green, old villians only add to the spectacle. And there are lots of fit, handsome young men to...research for hero possibility purposes ;).

I love it, but footy season means the kids and I must share my husband with his other great loves - football, of course, and talkback radio.

The weekends are gone as he barracks for our beloved Collingwood Magpies, as he rewatches the game (only if they win ;)), as he watches the news, watches TV shows dedicated to nothing but football, all in a desperate effort to perhaps exert some kind of control over the next week's outcome. Mid-week it only gets worse! For every night he bustles in the door all fired up about some comment Joe from Frankston made on talkback radio. Or some prediction Phyllis from Mordialloc made about a game ten rounds away.

This will be my life til the last Saturday in September!

Footy season is fabulous. It's spectacular, and engrossing, and energising. But those of us who get caught up in the hoopla are all mad. Truly. Nevertheless...

GO PIES!!!