We arrive at Maxwell’s car park. The rain is squally and the wind is something fierce. I open the driver’s door and am treated to a blast. The boys’ fingers already have that redness that can only get worse as the game progresses. I berate them about not wearing gloves and I throw my weight about, going on about why they are never prepared, and that they should have remembered to bring them. I tell them that I cannot be the only one to remember things and that they would forget their heads if they weren’t attached to their bodies. As we make our way over to the pitch, the wind is at a crescendo and this feeling of wildness provides me with a sense of happiness. The threat of hailstones does something to my insides. It calms me and I recognize that I am not in control of nature. It is the closest that I can come to a religious experience.

I occasionally visit the church of St Alphonsus around the corner from our house on my way to the office. It’s a way of sitting with my thoughts but mainly I enjoy the architecture. I am worried that the priest thinks that I am depressed or that I am in mourning, but I am neither of these two things. We don’t go to Mass as a family mainly because it clashes with the football. Holy Communion is something that I ingest now only at a requiem mass. The days of going to weddings and christenings are over. Most of the friends that I’ve witnessed getting married over the last number of years have long since parted ways. Jenny and I may be the last ones standing. I feel a certain pride in that. I imagine that Jenny has similar feelings – or at least I hope she has.

Maurice is at the pitch and his spirits are high.

I’m out for the day, he tells me. After this, I’m off to watch the rugby. She’s granted me this, Alison, she’s a great girl at times. And we’re going to hammer Les Bleus.