July 2009 Archives

As predicted, there was a certain amount of precipitation during our camping adventure. Not enough to cause us to flee to the nearest hotel, but just enough to remind us that we were camping.

The other reminder that we were camping came every night when I attempted to lie on an air mattress. This was a cheap and cheerful model which we were using to make up the full complement for our tent, but could just as easily been employed as a fairground ride.

Getting on the mattress was rather like trying to climb on an irate dolphin in a paddling pool full of lard. But the real fun came when I tried to turn over in the night. Plunging my fists into the mattress in order to shift my weight would result in my backside being thrown up in the air. As soon as this happened, I would lose my balance, causing me to land awkwardly and bounce off sideways. Once I had regained my dignity, the whole process would start  again.

This worked well as a distraction from the pain in my legs which wakes me up most nights, but which was made worse by the cobbled streets of Chartres and the bumpy ground of the campsite.

Otherwise it was the usual litany of excess that France seems to subject me to. Lots of wine, cheese, and meat products topped and tailed with pastries and what must surely be the best bread in the world.

In fact, I didn't even manage to do much in the way of holiday reading, the calorific overload and the prospect of the effort involved in winding up the wind up lamp reducing me to idle thoughts, such as:

Why do so many people now lift the hose up and shake it after filling their car with fuel, when they have just used the trigger on the nozzle to turn the flow on and off?

and:

In dry cleaners, are those machines just behind the counter just pretend to give the whole place a cleaning vibe? There's never anything going around in them, and they look like a pimped up version of the machines in the launderette.

and, of course:

What's that crawling around outside? Should I try and get up to investigate, or will the airbed fire me out of the tent at high velocity, causing me to crush some kind of local endangered species?

So now we're back, and it's time to put the brain back into gear. For those that didn't see it, my weekly column for The Times finished this week with a look back and forwards.

It was great to have the opportunity to reflect on the fantastic stories, comments and support that I have received over the last six months, and I would like to offer my thanks to all of those who got in touch.

So now I'm getting ready to speak at a Symposium on Integration in Sport up in Nottingham tomorrow, of which more in due course...

So, the car needs packing, we have to water the goldfish and feed the plants. Then there's the fifteen newly opened packets of perishables in the fridge to be dealt with, and all of that's before we even begin on the negotiations over which toys are chosen to rattle around everyone's ankles on the drive before being left in a service station just outside Calais. Which will, no doubt, cause a major emotional crisis defused only by the hasty purchase of a large bag of luridly coloured and peculiarly shaped lumps of congealed cow-hoof called something like Pumtwats or Bappyteds...

Yes, we're off on holiday. A week of camping just outside Chartres (sadly no connection to Green Chartreuse, so a reduced risk of peculiar, lurid-liqueur-fuelled halucinations). This means that I shall be abstaining from any keyboard activity for a while. It also means that we will be eyeball-deep in mud, huddled in the wind-shredded remains of our tent, trying to hear the World Service to get updates on the worst summer storms in living memory. Or not.

But then, that's half the fun of camping. You can never be totally sure that you are going to have a great time or a miserable one. The other half of the fun is usually made up with table-tennis (25%) and watching some of the strangest people on the planet stride purposefully to and from the 'amenities' block dressed in speedos, socks and sandals, carrying a washbag the size of the Graf Zeppelin under one arm, and whistling Rosanna by the band Toto.

So, into the fray. Wish us Bon Chance, and keep that Michael Fish away from the weather map for the next seven days. Please.

Normal service shall be resumed thereafter.

Today's Times column...

Which of course resulted in the weather becoming decidedly average as soon as I wrote it. I wonder if people in other countries are as superstitious about the weather as we are in Britain.

Actually, thinking about it, maybe we're not superstitious enough. Perhaps we should have devoted more time to developing a special traditional dance to induce sunshine, instead of all our efforts being in praise of pigs' bladders and real ale...

Browsing e-bay with R's fourth birthday approaching, we do the usual search for items we can add to her completely random assortment of Playmobil figures. I love the surreal games that emerge when she gets out the farmyard, the dinosaur, a couple of cowboys and the odd pirate...

All is as expected, until we stumble upon what can only be described as a rather sinister assortment...

This week's Times column...

Yes, Wimbledon. Sun, sandwiches and the most outrageous parking charges. And swarms of hysterical adolescent girls, including one who was squeaking into her phone,
"Mummy! Mummy! Roger Federer just TOUCHED me!"
 It was of course hero worship rather than anything inappropriate, but I'm not sure it's a great boast to make in public.

The tennis was great. A thrilling final that went all the way. Fantastic rallies in front of an appreciative crowd. That said, we all looked up from time to time to see what was going on over on Centre Court, watching the scoreboard ticking over.

As you may have gathered, I was not on the 'show courts'. I'm instinctively suspicious of anything prefixed with 'show'. Show trials, show jumping, show tunes, show offs, and of course, 'show me the way to go home'.
For me, Wimbledon was all about the wheelchair tennis on court 4, which culminated in a fantastic final match eventually won by the French pair Houdet (professorial) and Jeremiasz (Jean Reno lookalike).

One of the most entertaining aspects of the weekend came in the form of overheard comments made by people passing the court. Comments like:

"It's amazing! It's like proper tennis!"

Or the conversation between two passers by on their way to Centre Court:
"We're going to miss our seats."
"F**k that! This looks much more fun!"

The weekend has left me exhausted, red of the face and neck, and determined to improve my tennis...