If this post sounds a little sleepy it’s because I wrote it at 4 am. I didn’t sleep at all well last night; don’t know why, so I sat up and read for a while and then I wrote this. For some reason I was thinking about school sports and those games I was taught at secondary level, which almost without exception I hated. I didn’t mind games at junior school: I was quite good at rounders and I enjoyed doing things with bean-bags; but once I got to grammar school it all got quite serious and team-based. I ask you, netball! Netball is such a crap game – having to stop dead still as soon as you get the ball is a ridiculous idea, because that’s just the moment when you want to move. So in a way it’s quite an inhibiting game. And as for hockey – I could never understand how you were supposed to whack a ball into a net using a piece of wood no wider than a ruler and shaped like a crumhorn.
Do I mean a crumhorn? Perhaps I’m thinking of a sackbut? There’s one of those on Chris Conway’s CD. But I’m not very well-up on medieval instruments, though I did go through a phase of liking early music.
But no music is as early as this blog post. Anyway, I was always crap at school sports and was never picked for any team: instead I was sent to dribble up an down in the outer darkness with a couple of other hockey refuseniks. The only time I was ever chosen to play I got covered in mud standing in the mid-field while a clump of girls bore down on me wielding sticks and yelling. By the time I’d cupped my hand to my ear and said: ‘Sorry – didn’t quite catch that. What did you say?’ they were down the far end and the opposing team had scored.
No wonder the PE teachers hated me. But not as much as I hated them and their stupid games.
We went to part of the Caribbean Carnival yesterday but were most hacked off to find that access to the park had been limited to the main gates only and that they were checking bags and frisking people! After a few minutes Mark had a hissy fit and he turned and left: pausing only to consider a moment I decided I agreed with him and I left also.
So instead we went into town where we happened upon Jan who has moved to Barrow and gone on holiday to Barra. Very confusing…
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 