Bank holiday weekend, and I am writing in these pages a bit early in order that I do not have to try and compose florid and carefully-considered prose whilst being repeatedly interrupted by bad-leg wielding individuals wishing to be conveyed just around the corner.
I have recently downloaded a thing on to this website which informs me, whilst I am composing, of how attractive my writing is to Google. Every night it explains to me, in a jolly We’re Here To Help You tone, that my sentences are far too long and my vocabulary too complex to be of interest to Google’s general readership.
If you are a reader of these pages, I can tell you now, Google is seriously underestimating you, and also that they are trying to build a Brave New World where nobody uses long words for anything at all, no matter how complicated the concept they are trying to convey.
Oh Brave New World.
Not that I am ever attempting to convey complex concepts. Usually I am telling you that it rained on the washing, which it almost did today, except fortunately I had gone into the back yard to bring in a load of firewood, and spotted my peril just in time.
I was very pleased at such good fortune.
It has been a bit of a hazy day, actually, largely because I had something of an interrupted night.
I did not go to bed early, partly because I had been working, but partly because Number One Daughter was competing in an exciting Cross Fit competition which started at two o’ clock in the morning.
This was not because they were trying to get a discount on the hire of the sports hall or anything, Cross Fit is not yet an Olympic sport, but it is not quite that strapped for cash.
The competition was being held in Korea.
It is called Far East Throwdown, and Number One Daughter and her team have gone over there to compete. This is because the winning team will go on to somewhere in America in the summer, to compete in the World Championships.
Obviously I was interested to watch it, because although I am not exactly captivated by watching people doing things called Muscle Ups and swinging heavy weights with ferocious ease, I am constantly awed and impressed by Number One Daughter’s astounding sporting prowess.
I had finished work by the time that it started, so I brought my computer into the bathroom and propped it on the sink to watch whilst I was in the shower. I was a bit early, but determined not to miss anything.
Goodness, it was exhausting. Thirty teams of young people from all sorts of exotic places, like Russia and Singapore and South Africa, were bouncing around like Guffy the kitten when Roger Poopy tries to lick her, except they were carrying enormous heavy dumbbells whilst they did it.
Fortunately I had finished showering by the time we got to Number One Daughter’s heat, and was propped up in bed, where I could concentrate, and discovered, to my pleased surprise, that Number One Daughter’s team are actually the favourites to win.
The commentator was unashamedly partisan, referring to the other teams as The Team In Lane Three instead of by their names, but when it came to Number One Daughter’s team, which is called by the rather unimaginative name of Cross Fit Aylesbury, he didn’t just know the team name, but the names of all the team members and a bit of a potted history of all of them.
One of the other teams is called Cross Fit Juggernaut, which I rather liked.
Cross Fit Aylesbury were interviewed by a young woman with an incomprehensible American accent, and said that they were very pleased to be competing in Korea.
They won the first heat.
I was very pleased indeed, and settled off to sleep, setting an alarm for the next heat, which was at five in the morning. Obviously when it went off I could not work out why I had set it, and lay blinking confusedly, like Rosie when she has been snoring too loudly to hear me come in, and then I switch the light on.
They did not win the second heat, but there was almost nothing in it, and they are now running second.
I am going to set an alarm for tonight’s heats as well. The tension is mounting, and although I am not sure that long-distance jeopardy is a brilliant idea at five o’clock in the morning, really I would not like to miss it.
What an exciting adventure it is to be a parent.
