Sunday, August 16, 2009

Sunday's spotlight - Oh day of darkest gloom and unending mourning

By guest blogger Pete.

If you read last week's blog then you will be aware of my love for the game of cricket. The 3rd Test that I spoke of in that blog ended in a draw but the 4th Test ended in humiliation. England didn't just lose that Test Match they were also annihilated, crushed, pulverised, taken apart, destroyed just to mention a few. To crown it all those same players were paid for being annihilated, pulverised, taken apart, destroyed.... Any English county side would have done better than the batsmen of the England XI. Sack cloth and ashes have been donned and three days of mourning have been called for. Heads will roll, comfy livings will be threatened, international careers will be ended.


Well, that's the good news for the week!!!!!!!!!!(if you happen to be Australian).


Mary, our elder daughter, Fin, her husband, Matthew and Peter , our grandsons, descended on us last Wednesday. The boys have developed an interest in tennis - they're not old enough yet to appreciate the finer details of that other sport (or perhaps they are after last week's debacle!). Thus, after a 2 1/2 hours car ride we all went off to the local park to play tennis.

Now I haven't played tennis since my college days some 50 years ago so I was just a little rusty. I had always understood, though, that the way to win a match was to break your opponents' service. In our doubles match you were guaranteed to win if you could keep your service! Just shows how things have changed in 50 years. After an hour of tense tennis we finished 6 games all so honour was preserved on both sides of the net. If we had played for another week my guess would be that the score would still remain equal. Mind you, the courts were exactly up to Wimbledon standards. Ours was inhabited by various colonies of flying ants. If the ball landed on one of their many nests not only did that ball fail to bounce but it also disturbed increasingly angry hordes of flying ants seeking revenge.

Thursday and Friday saw a fair amount of the wet stuff but Saturday was dry and sunny so off we set to visit Cleethorpes. It's a good many years since Pam and I had been there and I don't think any of the others had ever graced the place. However, the passing years and seen a salutary improvement in the amenities of that town and the place has vastly improved. Being on a diet, we marked our arrival with coffee and multiple doughnuts - just the sort of mid-morning snack that "Weight Watchers" would approve of!


The promenade is about ten (TEN) (10) (5+5) miles long and so a good healthy walk from one end to the other, which we achieved in about 1 hour. Don't for a minute believe them, but my grandsons attempted to convince me that the length was more like 1 mile. After another healthy meal - this time fish and chips - it was off to the boating lake, where the 6 of us risked life and limb climbing into the rowing boat. However, the rowers couldn't see where they were going so I volunteered to be captain, ably assisted by my 1st Mate. They turned out to be a motley mutinous crew who were fortunate not to be made to walk the plank.


Fin was the driver home. Mary just about managed to keep awake for that trip home but, despite Matthew's outcry of denial, the rest of us had "40 or so winks" en route.

Keep on totting up the miles - supposed to be good for your health!

2 comments:

Lily Pang said...

So interesting to read your outings!

Looking at your creations, I really feel that creative work makes a person forever 18 years old.

Unknown said...

Thanks Lily. I thoroughly enoy expression through, especially, photography and, to a lesser degree, art. I often think of Oscar Wild who said that youth is wasted on the young. Perhaps you get a second chance when you retire.