Yesterday J and I went on a 400-mile round trip to see Manchester United play their opening game of the season at Old Trafford. J has been a Man U fan since he was four. I grew up in Yorkshire, where you were expected to spit whenever you heard the name Manchester United. When we first got together, even though I’ve never really cared about football, the fact that J was a Man U fan was a really difficult mental block for me. It felt so WRONG to even be friends with such a creature. Anyway, I am over it now.

The first thing we had to do was set the automatic cat-feeders so that the little furry bastards would get their dinner on time. We call these the robo-Cathys, because before we had them we used to get J’s ex-wife Cathy to come over and feed the cats while we were away. But now we’ve replaced her with a simple gadget.

I tell Molly they’re like the Terminator. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are FED. She is not amused.

And then we hit the road.

(J is actually in the car, I am just a rubbish photographer, and he was rushing me.)

And before long, we stopped at the motorway services,

For snacks!

(Also, hello, my feet!)

Hula-Hoop silliness ensued…

Where are we going? Oh, THE NORTH.

It rains a lot in THE NORTH.

To distract ourselves from the horrid weather, we put Radio 4 on, where we found a documentary, I kid you not, about different varieties of strawberries. For some reason we found this hysterical. I mean, who knew there was so much information out there about strawberries! There are BREEDS of them. Cue hilarity:

When we got to Manchester, we stopped for a healthy and nutritionally-balanced lunch.

Om nom nom.

Nom nom…

And then we went and parked the car, and put our strips on.

It was raining really heavily as we walked to the stadium.

I took a very hasty and damp photo of J outside the stadium which he and fellow fans laughably refer to as ‘The Theatre of Dreams’. He does not thank me for pointing out that that would only be true if you only dreamed of football matches. It’s not like it’s ever a stadium of people embarrassed to discover they have come to school in their underwear, or you know, clowns on unicycles, or anything.

I was delighted when we got to our seats to discover that we hadn’t missed the warm-up. My favourite part of going to the football with J is watching grown men skip together in a circle. It’s a joy.

And then they kicked off.

It was, unfortunately, a very dull match. Newcastle scored, Man U equalised, and then nothing else happened for a really long time. BORING. I kept myself amused listening to the new chants the fans had made up over the summer, almost all of which were extremely sweary.

On the way out, we stopped to admire a police horse.

And then we walked back to the car to begin the long trip home. We stopped at another motorway service station for dinner. (KFC this time.)

And, many hours later, got home to two grouchy cats, and two successfully-deployed robo-Cathys.

J gave Milly a little celebratory pick-up. She wasn’t pleased.

And then we went to bed.