Miles today: None in car, but several million walked on foot.
Total miles: Same as yesterday.
Number of umbrellas bought: 2
Number of umbrellas broke: 1
Number of umbrellas lost: 1
Football score: 1-0  🙂
Cost of champagne to celebrate: 23€

Getting behind with my days now so might not remember everything. After the pink pyjamas girl I came down the hostel stairs and opened the door at the bottom to be confronted with a little boy of about 8, in blue pyjamas, stood in the doorway silently not saying anything. Just stood stock still, not coming in and not going out, just standing in the doorway. Its like something out of sixth sense. He didn’t even move so I head to edge round him. I was tempted to ask could I take his photo, but bearing in mind a) he might have been imaginary, and b) its not really the done thing to caught asking young foreign boys can you have photographs of them in their nightwear. Later in the bar there were dozens of them, all kids in pyjamas. I really don’t know what was going on.

It rained for most of the morning so not much fun. Gave up and headed into town. Bought a brolly, broke it, bought another brolly, lost it. I’ve also given up trying to charge my phone by sitting in the car with the engine running and just bit the bullet and bought a charger with a European plug on the end. Pah!

Found a nice little Irish bar which was the only pub with a big screen and made sure they were showing the FA Cup final. I had been back to the hostel to change into a WAFC blue vest and then realised the time and how far away it was. I had to run through the rain and puddles full pelt and arrived sweaty and breathless to find there was still an hour to go. Turns out that the time of 5.15pm it had advertised on the blackboard outside was UK time, and it actually started at 6.15 european time. No idea why they don’t work on the same time as the whole of the rest of Europe – just one fiddledy dee pub in the whole of Belgium still on UK time. Pah!

Ended up sitting with 3 scottish windmill makers (they’re a bit miffed I said that and insist I point out that they design then, not actually MAKE them) (also insisted I put 3 good looking scottish windmill makers) for most of the match,  apart from 20 minutes where I sat with a very drunk lecherous bloke from Lower Ince. His mates say he lives at the posh end. Clearly rubbish, there ISN’T a posh bit of Lower Ince. Anyway, I moved on and went back to sit with the windmill men.

Still can’t believe we won. I tried my old faithful trick of going to the loo in the hope that Wigan scoared while I was away. Its never failed me yet. This why my ex always used to make me face the wall if England ever got to penalties. Anyway it worked! One nil to Wigan. For those final few minutes I stood in the middle right infront of the big screen just jumping up and down. Final whistle went and the whole place cheered and cheered. One of the windmill makers came over to hug me, someone bought me a drink,  I got high 5’s and hugs off some Bolton fans who were in on holiday from Horwich, and some Belgians also came over to say congratulations in foreign and shake my hand. Brilliant brilliant moment, I’ll never forget. Really wish I was there at Wembley with all my Billinge FC mates, but it wasn’t to be. If not actually watching it in real life at Wembley an Irish pun in Antwerp was the next best place to be! One of the windy millers got a bit chivelrous and brought over a bottle of champagne, which was nice until the barman came back to say his card had been declined. Ha ha ha. It was something I’d have done anyway to celebrate, so went down to pay for it myself. Windy Miller No1 got very offended by this and I think we might have even wrestled over it, until the barman settled the argument by shouting “For christ’s sake, the girl supports Wigan and they’ve just won the FA Cup, let her buy the champagne, it’s not likely it’s something she’ll ever be able to say again!”. So me and the 3 windy millers toasted Wigans win and chinked glasses with everyone in the pub.

I also had a bit of a cheeky snog with Windy Miller No3. The rest of the night is a blur. We went on to all Antwerps posh clubs (we’re talking £15 for 2 drinks) and I vaguely remember eating a lemon sponge gateux with squirty cream at about 1am because I was hungry and it was all the barman could russle up at that time of night when the chef had gone home. Crawled back to my hostel at 7am this morning and was met by the over enthusiastic Aussie girl who mistook me for a participant in Eurovision, and all the Sixth Sense pyjama children hearded up in reception.

There’s probably a whole boatload of other things that I’ve forgotten, I was very drunk after all the celebrations so memories will probably come back gradually!