The posts are getting later. This is due to my circumstances at the moment and should go back to normal in about a week or so.

I wouldn't really get away without saying something about the match today so 1:0, there we go, plus Sweden drew so I am ecstatic.

It is hot here, it is actually hotter here than it was on holiday which is strange. Sat outside to eat lunch which makes a change from the usual weather. I then went and bought an England flag for the car, because I realised after writing yesterday's blog that I was going on about patriotism and hadn't even bought a flag myself. Now I can join the masses.

A short one today, because I am off to celebrate.

Have fun.

Firstly, I must apologise for the lack of a post on Wednesday. I could not log into blogger and so left the post on Thursday, but when I came to write a new post on Thursday my computer crashed and I have just got it back working.

I'm not going to spend the whole summer banging on about the World Cup but it is England's first game tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it. This year I really think we'll win it. Hopefully there won't be too many penalty shoot-outs.

If somebody was to visit England at the moment they would think that we were the most crazily patriotic nation on earth. Flags on every other car, flags on the front of newspapers, shops, houses, t-shirts, even dyed into peoples hair. I'd love to know what the American tourists are thinking right now.

I always feel the urge to go outside and play football when the world cup is on, I don't bother for the rest of the time; I think that I want to emulate the players that are on TV. It was always the same with Wimbledon; every year I would be out playing tennis. It took me a while to realise that to actually become good at the game you would have to play all year round, not just when it was on TV.

Wish us luck wherever you are from.

This is yesterday’s message which did not get posted because blogger went down.

Good evening,

The World Cup is very close now. I will of course be supporting England all the way but this year I’ll also be supporting all of the teams down the right hand side of the page (when they’re not playing England of course) five of which are taking part in the World Cup; these are Australia, France, Japan, Portugal and USA – Good luck to you all.

The World Cup is a great time for people to forget their differences and join together to just love football. I know greater people have said this in much more profound ways than I can so I won’t labour on it; I just wish it wasn’t once every four years that people feel like this.

I hope that if you are reading this in a country that does not have a team in the finals you will still appreciate the fantastic players and spirit in which they play.

Footnote: not sure what I’ll do when Australia play Japan on their first game, oh well, may the best team win.

Hello there,

I'm back in England now, which is the reason for such a late post. When I arrived back at my house there was a certain package awaiting me. The Sydney 2000 Olympic Official's Shirt has arrived safely. I have added a picture of it below.

For you eagle eyed viewers it is the same picture I uploaded before as my camera battery has run out but I can assure you that it has arrived.

So, I am now officialy looking for my third trade. What do you have that you consider unusual, interesting, valuable to someone else; if you are prepared to trade it for the t-shirt then let me know.

Speak to you tomorrow.

As a result of my operations I have two main scars on my body and a few littles ones too. I have a scar that runs down the middle of my chest and one that runs from my left armpit to the middle of my back.

The one on my back is from the first operation I had when I was three months old; I still have very little feeling in that scar but sometimes it itches and sometimes it even hurts. It never did this when I was younger and I'm hoping that it is a sign that I am slowly regaining feeling there.

The scar on the front of me has complete feeling but it is the one that everybody can see especially as right now it has turned pink in the sun. I don't mind that people can see them, I'm not ashamed at all. You could even say I'm proud of them.

It would be easy to get depressed about my scars but if I didn't have them I wouldn't be here.

I don't remember most of what happened to me when I was having my operations as a child. I don't remember the stress, the nights spent praying for my safety or the days spent at my bedside. That was reserved for my parents.

My parents are great people; they went through so much when I was a child and the only way I feel I can repay them is to live my life to the full and take every opportunity that I am given. They allowed me to live as full a life as possible and I think this helped a lot for both them and me.

So many parents out there must worry about the effects CHD is having on their child when actually the more bad stuff they can get out of the way as a child the less it affects the child later in life.

It may seem like it is never going to end but in many cases children are incredibly brave and deal amazingly well with emotional stress.

Time tends to heal children with CHD better than it heals their parents and that is why I believe there should be a better support network for parents of children, not that what we have is not good, just that it could be better.