Lily celebrated Saturday by putting five olives on her fingers then eating them. The olives, that is. 

RANT: The world cup is nearly upon us and an ever-increasing number of drivers decide that it’s time to stop sitting around and really help the England football team over in Germany by flying small flags on their cars in England. There’s a thin line here – I don’t want to discourage patriotism. The problem is; it isn’t partriotism. I wonder how many of these people know when St George’s day is (or indeed who he was). There was no flag-flying going on when the English team went off to Melbourne for the Commonwealth games this spring.

What’s funnier is that the whole concept of a flag is that it’s a visual symbol recognisable by its patterns to denote a particular country. But that’s not enough for the thickies… they need the word “England” written on – just to be safe in case someone thinks the George cross means Brazil , Paraguay or something. Even the concept that flag drag will boost fuel costs seems to make no impact on the dim whits who fly these annotated flags from their cars. I wonder how many of these patriots think the price of fuel is astronomical in this country?

But my real rant is about how this links to football, and why I like to play it but hate to watch it. Every summer, I love to watch the awesome challenge of the Tour de France, the tennis at Wimbledon, some cracking Athletics meetings and several other sports. But there’s something else in football. Many sports have their passionate fans, but none are so partisan. I don’t really mind whether Lance Armstrong or Ivan Basso win a stage or the overall… it’s how it’s done that makes it entertaining. The England fans I saw watching the last world cup in the pubs of this country didn’t care how it was done – didn’t even care whether England had played fairly – they just wanted them to win. Panache not required. What a dull outloook on life. Rant over.

Dull work-related stuff alert about the Civic Trust’s Green Flag and Green Pennant award scheme. As the national standard for measuring the quality of our parks and green spaces, my colleagues and I are making every effort to encourage Doorstep Greens to go for an award once they’re up and running.

I’m one of the Green Flag and Green Pennant scheme’s judges – there are more than 400 of us – I’ve had a busy month. I’m judging three sites this year fairly near to where I live and it takes quite a bit of reading up (100 page management plans are hard going but a necessity for large, Victorian public parks).

An element of the award is purely judging the quality of the management documents – a desk assessment of all the background information. It gives a great insight into the amount of work going into our parks and green spaces behind the scenes.

It’s what happens on the site visit – the judgement day – which really makes it all worthwhile though. No amount of paperwork can prepare you for the great buzz you get when you visit the space and meet the local people who use it. It’s a very important tradition for Green Flag judges to meet members of the local community – “Friends of” groups, etc., when judging a site. From the people who use it, you get the ‘warts and all’ version of the park’s value. For these moments, you can forget the management plan – its maintenance schedules, health and safety audits and peat-free statements – when you meet the people, the park comes to life.

It’s the same for all the Doorstep Greens I’ve visited with work. You just don’t want to know the extent of the number-crunching, analysis, planning, writing and emailing that goes into keeping Doorstep Greens going and making sure that they survive into the future. Like the Park Management Plans I read for Green Flag applications – it’s a necessity – but the spaces and the people who bring them to life beat the paperwork hands-down.