The Nation Is Buzzing. I'm Buffering

I want to be creative, but my brain feels scatty. Like there are fifty tabs open, but this cold is stopping every single one of them from loading.

Ideas are there. I know they are. They’re just buffering.

I’m absolutely boiling. My head feels full of cotton wool. I want to sleep, but that’s undoubtedly an impossible option. Every time I close my eyes, my brain decides now would be a brilliant time to remember seventeen unrelated things instead.

Outside my little bubble, though, the world hasn’t slowed down.

Football fever is alive and kicking. The nation is buzzing for the boys. Strangers are becoming teammates for ninety minutes. Pubs are overflowing. Living rooms have transformed into stadiums. Every near miss is met with a collective gasp. Every goal with celebrations loud enough to wake the dead.

The whole world is discovering that Wonderwall is biblical over here. We drink pints like they’re water in a drought, and even our captain is losing his voice from all the singing.

As I sit here with my Jaffa Cakes, wrapped in a blanket and losing the battle with this cold, I find myself hoping this feeling outlasts the tournament. The togetherness. The conversations between strangers. The collective hope. The joy that spills out of pubs and into the streets.

Because we could all do with a little more of that.