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Well, this week saw Colin's birthday come and go, so he's now 11. With some of his birthday money he bought A Bug's Life for the Playstation and we bought him a new memory card. That's all the kids' birthdays over for another year.

We also arranged for him to spend an hour with one of the Classic soccer coaches. This was really from two points. First, to give him some proper coaching on soccer skills. Although I've been involved with soccer for many years, I'm still just a parent, not a proper coach (although I know a lot more about soccer than a lot of the other parent coaches...), so it was about time that Colin had someone to point him more in the right direction. Secondly, I wanted to get an independent evaluation of his skills as the registration for Fall soccer is coming up again and I wanted to get some idea as to whether he should be trying out for Classic, or just sticking with the Rec program.

Anyway, Colin spent an hour+ with the coach, Paul Slover,and the verdict was good. Paul definitely thinks he should be playing Classic, as he has some good skills, and he was surprised that he wasn't playing Classic already. It's interesting that Paul was teaching him some of the things I was trying to, but the difference was Paul could explain why to do it a certain way, things I wasn't even aware of, but just did. Colin enjoyed it as well, so I might arrange more sessions.

One of the problems of not playing in the Classic program is that you miss out on a lot of serious coaching, as well as playing against guys in your own skill bracket. One lad on my indoor team last year, Ben Drum, was obviously quite skilled, but was almost totally left-footed, he could barely hit the ball with his right foot. He was in one of the other teams that Colin played against in the recent indoor program at Sports Nation, and he has come on a long way in the past year. If you don't get access to that level of coaching the gap betrween Rec and Classic can become quite considerable if not too much to cross.

Paul also spent some of the session with Graham and was quite impressed with his skills. It's obvious that he's been playing longer and at a higher level than the others his age.

Colin was also at his outdoor camp for most of the week. He seemed to survive it, but it was so cold they were all going to bed with their clothes on. He also said that the place seemed almost falling apart, there wasn't enough food and other sundry things. Second thoughts all round on whether the kids would do it again.

While Colin was away, Catriona and Graham shared a room. When Colin got back they decided they wanted to keep that arrangement. So now Colin has his own room, which he's dead pleased with, and the other two are murder to get off to sleep at night.

The other big event of the weekend, my first refereeing games, turned out to be a false start. Both my games were cancelled because of unplayable fields. Oh, well, next week...

I finally managed to get along to one of Doug's gaming group's Thursday evening gaming sessions. For various reasons I've missed them all in the past, so it was good to get along. Doug, Josh and Matt, the host, my Britannia players from a few weeks past were there, as well as Dave, Jackie and Jennifer. We had enough for two games, so I played some Acquire (badly) and Mamma Mia (even more badly, although it's a difficult game to pick up from someone trying to explain the rules - you've got to play it). I'll be back...

That's enough for tonight, I'll try and catch up some more soon