That was on Saturday as Romford won 1-0 despite taking something of a battering. Then, as games fell by the wayside on Tuesday, I found myself dashing to VCD again, this time as they faced Leyton. The programme for the game was originally issued for the postponed match on December 29 and there was an up-to-date insert. Keeper Elliott Justham was the only player in Leyton's original 1-11 who appeared in the updated one, and not one of the players on that updated list actually lined up. That made 31 players in all, since the final starting 11 included Danny Francis who had been in the Dec 27 team. I suppose that's what happens when you reach your fourth manager of the season.

Leyton also took a battering but they were sharp up front and led 3-1 at half-time before going down 4-3. They had a chatty and cheerful Lithuanian goalkeeper called, they thought, Alvudas Ceponis. He wasn't very good, to be honest, but pulled off one blinding save to deny Aaron Firth a hat-trick. I was glad to see Firth acknowledge his opponent with the traditional sporting slap on the bum, and hoped the gesture means the same in Lithuania.

Canvey had also been enjoyable; a 4-1 away win for Aveley who had been worried a week earlier when they were only one point above the relegation zone and were now pretty much terrified to be only five points off the play-offs. Intriguing feature of this game was a penalty conceded by Tony Russell, one of my daughter's Facebook connections. I was standing next to the Aveley bench at the time and we all agreed that it was an obvious penalty. Strangely enough, Canvey and Aveley folk on the opposite side of the pitch thought it was a comic decision. That's angles for you. Who'd be a ref?

While Route 66 progress was otherwise frustrated, there were still matches to watch. On the Monday after the Canvey game I saw their neighbours Concord steal a last-kick 2-1 win at Ilford, a game remarkable for an incident in which, to the entire approval of the ref, two Concord players burst through on the left to threaten the Ilford goal. The odd aspect of this was that they each had a ball at their feet. One eventually pulled up, bemused, the other was tackled, but there was no whistle. Could they have scored two goals at once?

The following night, with almost everything rained off, I managed to find some action at Boreham Wood where an own goal gave the hosts a 2-1 win over Hendon in remarkably good conditions.

All that was left on Wednesday was a trip to the distinctly chilly East London Stadium, where senior football newcomers Bethnal Green United beat Barkingside 2-1 in the Essex Senior League Cup. A young acquaintance of mine in the BGU squad was delighted to have been 'borrowed' by Concord for a recent League Cup tie against Billericay, which they won, and was hoping to get the call for the next round. I had to break the news to him that he, and a couple of others, had not been properly registered and there would be no next round.

Thursday took me to Sittingbourne after the pitch passed a 4pm inspection, but constant rain after that halted proceedings in the 16th minute.

On Monday and Wednesday of this week the rain beat me, though I had a rare Wednesday night ice hockey fixture at Romford for consolation, and last night I spent three miserable hours on the North Circular expecting them to be wasted, only to find Kingstonian's pitch in immaculate condition. The 3-3 draw with Wealdstone was as good a game as I have seen all season.

Once again, for the third time this season, I have timetabled the rest of my Route 66 visits. No doubt, as it has done on the two previous occasions I've made my plans, that will trigger another fortnight of postponements.

I know other people have done all 66 clubs in a season; I wonder, though, whether anybody has seen 100 Ryman League games in a season. At the moment I reckon I could do 102 if I set my mind to it, and there are bound to be more games on so-far free dates. I think I may be going mad.

I am accustomed to being the British Ambassador to Turkmenistan and I am disappointed to have received no gifts on MySchool Australia. My education, whether Australian or not, is not greatly improved by discovering that my name was originally given to a person who worked as a butcher. I am an accupuncturist in Newport but an acupuncturist in Cardiff. I am also a blind acupuncturist, apparently, but that sounds as if it might be inacurate. I've received a Queen's Award, which is pleasing. Perhaps that was for my work as a senior safety consultant in Angola for the past three years, which I managed to squeeze into the closing period of my 30 years as a Scottish fireman while acting as a consultant to local government and an estate agent. It would seem that I am also involved with a church whose motto is, "Open wide your mouth and I will fill it." Hmm. And that's just in the first few pages. Less probably, it claims that I am sports editor of the Romford Recorder. Oh, and on page 4 it tells me that I write a blog called Route 66. So I'd better.

When last we met, on Tuesday, I was planning a trip to Margate. And to Margate I went for a quick spot of sea air (I drove round the seafront with the car window slightly open, in other words. No way was I getting out in that wind). The later business, ground no.53, was a Premier Division game against Wealdstone. It finished 1-1 though Margate could have won by a cricket score had they made the most of their second-half possession. Interesting contrast in the dug-outs: Mark Butler was managing Margate, rather noisily, for the 15th time, Gordon Bartlett was managing Wealdstone for the 1,001st. It was also, as it turned out, Butler's last game, leaving him no doubt to regret his decision to leave Ashford (Middx), where he had been for many years, earlier this season for the lure of a theoretically bigger club. They could both depart from the Premier Division in May, but in opposite directions.

At the end of a very chilly night I was not feeling too happy about a 75-mile drive home in dodgy conditions. That was until the Sky vidiprinter tapped out TRURO 3 HEMEL HEMPSTEAD 1. Now that's a long journey home. As it happened, despite a closed stretch of motorway and a nasty flurry of snow, I was home in time to see my daughter. "You said you wouldn't be home till midnight," she snapped, and went to bed.

Wednesday was a short trip to Ilford to watch the battle between Waltham Forest and Thamesmead, both sides having suffered three-goal home defeats by Romford in the previous eight days. That didn't bode well, but Thamesmead had shaken off their disappointment and poor old Forest suffered a second successive 4-1 tonking. A massive crowd of 34 paid to get in and someone swore they had seen other people, or perhaps the same people, paying to get out. It was a good game, though, made all the better that it was played on a snow-covered pitch, something you rarely see these days. The Ryman League's official yellow winter ball is presumably designed for occasions such as this but it didn't help, perhaps because of Cricklefield's horrible street-lamp orange floodlights.

I've ducked out of the cross-London trip to Carshalton tonight but, with Canvey on Saturday followed by Ilford, Ramsgate, Concord Rangers and Boreham Wood on Monday to Thursday next week, I won't be soccer-starved (it the snow goes away). If all goes well, three of those games will be added to the Route 66 left and it'll be ten to go. Must start finding out about printers.

A few more games since last we met; Sittingbourne on Saturday. So you go through these massive gates and see this gigantic modern stadium in front of you, then turn left and go down a rough track to the back pitch where they have to play now. Must be heartbreaking for them.

Super people, though, as at so many clubs. It promised to be a cracker: S'bourne (15 goals in four games) v Horsham YM (22 goals in six games). You can guess the rest. Tony Di Barnado (Doc, presumably), YM's Canadian goalkeeper, was brilliant. It was foggy when I left: actually took three wrong turnings getting out of the car park, a personal best. 52 down, 14 to go on Route 66.

Managed to squeeze in basketball (Leopards at Brentwood) and ice hockey (Chelmsford) on Sunday just to prove my life doesn't revolve around football.

Then it was Aveley last night: a 1-0 win for the mighty Millers (OK, Craig?) over Billericay. Tuohy scored. But it was cold, cold, cold. Thanks to Steve for letting me huddle up to the heater in the club shop wiv me Bovril.

Two successive clean sheets for the Millers thanks, I reckon, to new boy Tony Russell. Afraid I dissed him on principle when they signed him from Ilford, but he turns out to be pretty good. Anyway, after dissing him I discovered that he was one of my daughter's Facebook people. They were at school together. So now he's a hero.

And off to Margate tonight. 53/66, weather permitting. Have planned the rest, cleverly finishing at likely champions Dartford. Last time I made a plan it snowed for three weeks. Could be the same again.

This is a deeply dull posting but I'm in a bit of a rush and I really want to keep this reasonably up to date this year. I'll be back to my usual sizzling style (hey, the old postings are here if you don't believe me...) next time, all being well.

All the talk this week has been about whether a married man who bonks his mate's wife is fit to lead his country. But enough about Prince Charles: on with the show.

Route 66, for any newcomers, is the probable title of my probable book on my probable visits to all 66 Ryman League clubs this season. Alas, spanners continue to drop into the works. My second attempt to visit Godalming (it would have been no.52) on Saturday ended with the dreaded 'it's off' phone call at about 12.15, by which time I was in Richmond. Plenty of time to find another ground, I thought. But a quick check of the fixtures revealed that the only home clubs I hadn't visited were Canvey and Ramsgate, neither of which was much of an option from deep in south-west London.

So it was Sutton v Aveley, another Millers game with plenty of goals and ending in a 3-2 defeat. They're slipping dangerously close to the relegation zone but having lots of fun along the way.

Sunday brought another chance to watch poor old Romford Raiders. Shorn of half their imports, our ice-hockey heroes went down 10-1 at home to Guildford. Interesting thing about it was that all ten goals (well, all 11, I suppose) were scored by different players. Has that ever happened in football.

Aveley again on Monday, a Championship Manager League Cup tie against Hornchurch. It was supposed to be getting, according to our climate change experts, so of course it dropped below freezing and of course there was a late goal (by Sos Yao of Hornchurch) to force extra time.

Millers ended their worrying winless streak with two extra-time goals and we all went home to thaw out. Talking point was a booking for Aveley striker Martin Tuohy for diving. Looked a pretty clear penalty from where I was standing (which was about as close as you could get without copping a banning order). Gavin will no doubt surprise me with a picture showing it wasn't a pen at all. GAV EDIT: Can't give you that one as the ref was standing right in front of it from my viewpoint so will have to make do with a couple of other 'non-pens' from the same game...

Tuesday's plan was Thamesmead v Romford. Thamesmead had already featured on Route 66 but it was a CM Cup tie and I'd like to do a league match everywhere. Half an hour on the Purfleet roundabout put paid to that. Strangely, traffic seemed to be flowing across the Dartford Bridge but getting to it was out of the question, especially with one lorry after another trundling slowly down from the M25 to block all four lanes of the box junction.

A hazardous slalom between the parked juggernauts eventually enabled me to escape eastwards and I made it to East Thurrock just in time for their kick-off against Northwood. Another entertaining 3-2 home win, most of which I spent in amicable disagreement with Essex FA chief executive Phil Sammons.

Now Phil is smarter than your average blazer; he did, after all, play around 600 games for Grays while acting as secretary of another Isthmian club, so he knows his stuff from the bottom up. Then there's me, a humble follower of the game but a quasi-insider with around 4,000 games behind me. Yet we still come to almost every question from radically different viewpoints.

A familiar-looking figure wandered past us at the end of the game. I can never recognise players with their clothes on but as he stopped to chat to Phil I realised that it was the previous night's diver (allegedly). "It was a definite penalty," Tuohy said. "But I admit I went down in instalments."

Now there's the thing. Is it any wonder that players dive when they know that if they try to stay on their feet they won't get the penalty and if they fall over late they'll probably get booked as well? I can't remember the last time I saw a penalty given when the player didn't go down after the foul.

Onwards and upwards: Ilford v Brentwood tonight, if it don't rain, before returning to Route 66 properly next week. No.52 on Saturday is now scheduled to be Sittingbourne, where I can take my punishment for absentmindedly calling them Sittingbourne Town in the league bulletin this week. People adding 'Town' to teams who don't have are among my pet hates, right up there with the greengrocers' apostrophe, so it will be an embarrassed blogger who creeps into the clubhouse.

Kent again next Tuesday, according to present plans, and a first-ever trip to Margate. Then 54 Canvey, 55 Ramsgate (eeps! Kent coast again) and 56 VCD (another maiden visit), with sundry Monday and Wednesday games in amongst them. I'll keep you posted.