HeeHoo graciously invited me to watch a couple of World Cup Rugby matches with him!
I realised later that he had an ulterior motive !! He had planned for me to go to the pub and get the beers so he did not miss a single try to be scored by the Bokke!!

Unfortunately for HeeHoo, our tickets happened to be in a stand almost higher that the London Eye so there was no-way I could get the beers to him without spilling!! We watched SA v Scotland on the weekend and will hopefully see SA v USA tomorrow night. On Saturday we were absolutely splendid in Green and Gold, but tomorrow we may have to slip on a red, white and Blue Beannie to semi support the USA!!

Such an atmosphere, the crowd was so supportive and even to the end they sang vociferously, the SA National Anthem, as we left the beautiful Newcastle Stadium.

The rugby ticket story was a saga of majestic proportions though......HeeHoo purchased them fairly late on the internet, knowing he would pay a premium price, but little deters him from supporting his team, his name is Kriel after all....

He purchased the tickets online as I said, with the hand of a master, but it was only after the last digit of the credit card had been entered, did the site crash!! Now he was a tad suspicious at this stage as his dear friend had recently been cheated out of ten thousand dollars, whilst buying a truck on the internet!!

However, HeeHoo is a trusting soul and if he had any misgivings he kept them from his Obsessive Little Wife....
Days turned to weeks and nothing was heard from the ticket site, who admittedly had a very professional and user-friendly site, but evil doubts gnawed continuously at HeeHoo, especially as nothing had arrived in the post right up until the night before we were to leave our London Hotel for Newcastle.

I was blissfully unaware (a state I live in permanently these days as I reach my dotage.) It was a sad little Green and Gold Rugby Supporter who sallied forth on the fast train to Newcastle at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning!! But nothing daunted, we found ourselves a pub right outside the stadium, full of men in kilts and men and women in green and gold. The Pub was bursting at the seams, but we luckily found ourselves a table and a pint of Guinness.... HeeHoo had drawn cash from a few ATM's along the way and was ever watchful for a Tout who could sell us yet another solid gold ticket!!

(The Rat, he told me afterwards, that if he only found one ticket, he was going to leave me in the Pub until after the game!!) The start of the Game was drawing closer, and HeeHoo was no longer his normal ebullient self.... but at exactly midday, rather Cinderella like I thought, the phone rang with a proud message that the tickets had been delivered to our hotel in London (a mere five hours away.)

HeeHoo is generally a courteous fellow, but his reply to the Little Ticket Man, was less than cordial I thought! Anyhow, he tossed his annoyance and turned into a Supercharged Superman. The London Hotel kindly scanned our precious tickets to his phone, HeeHoo leapt across the table, elbowed his way through the throng of Rugby Supporters, and rushed across the road to the ticket office, where they kindly and calmly, firstly verified the authenticity of the tickets, and then printed two new tickets which HeeHoo finally had clutched ecstatically in his sticky mitt!!

How eleventh hour was that And our team won too!!
Hallelujah !!!!