8^th July 2025

0930 hours.

As the title of our latest blog piece gently suggests, The DadLadTour will soon be in Switzerland. In little more than 24 hours GrumpPa and #SonInLawNo1 will be breathing fresh Alpine air and marvelling at the beauty of the Swiss landscape.

Woohoo!!

Months of planning and expectation and all the excitement that has been building for Liam and I will soon materialise. This grumpy ol’ GrumpPa is more than a tad giddy at the prospect of schlepping around Switzerland by train, visiting new cities and attending international football matches in a foreign land for the first time.

Some of you may be thinking, “Why is this old duffer so excited by going to an England away game?”

It’s a good question. A brief answer is:

I’ve followed football since 1980 when I was around 12 years old – I was late to take an interest in any sport. I supported my team – Bradford City (BCAFC) – with an ardent passion for nearly four decades. Then, a few years before the pandemic – as good a time reference as any – for reasons I still don’t fully comprehend, my love of the game didn’t just decline, it vanished. POOF…gone.

Almost…a spark was kept alive when I took notice of an England women’s game; I forget which game or when this was. Anyway, long story short, The Lionesses and women’s football breathed life onto that glowing ember of interest in football and slowly it flared again. My passion for the women’s game has grown immensely and, as a happy knock-on effect, has renewed my interest in BCAFC.

Consequently, our DadLadTour is an affirmation – to myself if no-one else – that I am still excited and invigorated by a sport that sustained and held me in it’s thrall for the vast majority of my life. Our trip to Switzerland is proof that I can still take enjoyment from, and in, something that I once thought was dead to me.

I think of it as akin to my own Odyssey – Ha! Bet you were wondering when Odysseus, our old mate from many earlier blog posts, was going to resurface – of my journey back home (metaphorically speaking).

Anyway….back to tomorrow.

I still need to set an alarm for 0430 in the morning; that is the ungodly hour I need to get up for our trip. But, heyho, it’s an inconvenience I’m prepared to undergo!! I pick Liam up an hour later. That’s when we hit the road – the delightful M62 that our blog has previously mentioned – and our adventure starts for real.

I have already packed the teeny-tiny backpack that Liam has lent me – he has often used it before on his travels and knows with certainty that it conforms to EasyJet’s “cabin luggage”regulations. We are undertaking our trip on hand luggage only and, although we have a greater allowance on our SwissAir flight out, we need to pack with the return flight in mind. #WifeNo1 has acquired some new-fangled “packing cubes” that squish everything down so they take up less room in your luggage and will help to meet the airline’s demands on the way back.

Plus….I know that you, like me, have certain garments in your underwear drawers. You know what I mean! We all have those old and tired undies and socks – the ones that are faded or with holes or where the elastic has given up the ghost. Well, I have packed boxers and socks that meet that criteria and which are less than pristine. These will be jettisoned at the end of each day in Switzerland thus reducing the load on my teeny-tiny backpack and helping to keep EasyJet sweet. A genius idea from GrumpPa!

All I have left to do now is pack my passport, wallet and Kindle because…I’m only 24 hours from Zürich!