THE most difficult task this week has been ignoring the hype.

Most football fans love nothing more than spending hours discussing the strengths and weaknesses of theirs and the opposition’s teams, the myriad possible outcomes of upcoming matches.

The more important the fixture, the longer the discussions. If it were possible to connect pontification such as this to the National Grid, it would power the UK, a sort of verbal green energy.

In homes, shops, offices across Newport and the surrounding area this week, much will have been talked about tomorrow’s Blue Square Bet Premier promotion play-off final, Newport County v Wrexham.

It began after that stirring afternoon last Sunday at Rodney Parade – more than 6,000 County fans cheering their team to victory over Grimsby Town in the play-off semi-final second leg.

It’s been going on at our place too, a natural occurrence, it being a newspaper office.

And if there’s football to be talked about, I’m usually in there, particularly if it involves crowing over the shortcomings of Leeds United to a long suffering and outof- pocket colleague who insists on having a £5 bet every time his team plays mine, Derby County.

Just a reminder – Derby have won the last nine.

But back to matters closer to Newport. This week, this newspaper has carried hundreds of column inches about tomorrow’s game, the build-up, the predictions, the team news, the hopes, the fears, the preparations. Take a look in this issue. There’s plenty more.

I have to admit that I have not read a word of it. I cannot bring myself to.

There is something about tomorrow afternoon’s match, the symbolism of it, what it will mean to the city, to the club, to the fans, that has made me shy away.

Don’t get me wrong, I badly want Newport County to win, to win well, and send everyone back down the M4 with smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts.

But I don’t want to think about it too much beforehand.

I’ll let the excitement begin to build on the way to Wembley, enjoy the pre-match atmosphere (and perhaps a couple of overpriced cheeseburgers), and roar County on with the thousands of other fans.

But until then, I’m not getting involved. Because, as John Cleese (or at least, his character in the film Clockwork) said: “It’s the hope that’s killing me.

Close encounters of the feathered kind

LET’S get away from sport and into the woods and fields.

That’s what I do most mornings when my dog is my alarm clock and, just like certain of these devices, she wakes me with increasingly loud noises at decreasing intervals, if I have the temerity to sleep beyond 7.30am.

It being spring, Coed Melyn in Newport is usually alive with the machine gun staccato of woodpeckers at this time of year.

And there is something incredibly mindcleansing about the act of pinpointing the trees in which they are tapping away, then trying to spot the birds themselves, particularly in the rapid fire act.

It is easy after a while to expect them to be there and to feel a little shortchanged if they are not, forgetting that it is not the role of nature to be at our beck and call.

Several other dog walkers have told me during the past couple of years that if I were really lucky, I might see a green woodpecker, as one is resident in the neighbouring St Woolos Cemetery.

Two years ago I think I caught of flash of it – just a second and it was gone – but had not seen it since. Until last Saturday.

Here was another flash, of green and yellow against the dappled sunlight through the trees, and this time, the bird landed on a dead tree trunk not 15 metres from where I stood.

I had the privilege of watching it for a good two minutes until it headed back towards the cemetery, and it felt like a reward, a gift to set up the day, topped off a few minutes later by a close encounter with a very handsome jay, which landed on a branch not five paces from the path.

I hope this doesn’t read too much like ‘Nature Notes with Old Keckwhistle’, but frankly, I don’t care.

Here’s to the next close encounter.