Home

We landed at Heathrow yesterday morning. What a shambles that airport is! A hotch potch of buildings designed by primary schoolchildren, with traffic chaos and seething crowds of visitors from all over the world. Welcome to London - the Olympic City.

I was glad to get away and headed back Up North to where the real English people dwell - the workers, the inventors, the artists, shipbuilders, the downtrodden Shooting Parrots and the Daphnes, the desperate Arctic Foxes and The Kaiser Chiefs. And of course, my family - lovely Shirley and our super children. I knew how much they must have missed me. What is a kingdom without a king? What is a ship without a skipper?

It was to be a surprise. I would just appear at the front door but perhaps through this blog, they were aware that I was about to return. So I was the one who got the surprise - a massive "welcome home" street party with the entire community gathered by trestle tables laden with traditional Yorkshire grub - pigs' trotters, tripe, oxtail pies, rhubarb, piles of Yorkshire puddings and jugs of foaming Tetley's bitter. I tell you, a shiver rippled up and down my spine when, swaying like a cornfield, they sang in unison, "Welcome Home" by Peters and Lee:-

I was interviewed by "The Sheffield Star" and the city's mayor presented me with a hand-crafted ornament representing my old ewe - Beau and my Yorkshire heritage. Suddenly, Blogland and what transpired there seemed so very far away. I was back in the bosom of my family. Shirley made me a cup of tea in my favourite Hull City mug and I settled down to watch "EastEnders" almost as if  had never been away.