Weevilstepmother

Tallboy and I have ventured into new territory. We've been together a while now (it's five years since we met over a hot MZ in a pub car park) and there comes a time in each relationship when you have to branch out a bit, and try something new. I had done it before, with the Ex, but that was ages ago. Mum has confided to me that she really enjoys it, I know she's been doing it a lot more in recent years. To be honest, I don't really think it's been something that Tallboy has wanted to do, but once he got into it, he was fine.

Yup, that's right. We did some Gardening. On a Bank Holiday too! Blimey days... In fact it was even worse - allow me *clicks rewind button to take us back to just before lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday*

We dropped the Steps off at Poppy's, and congregated in the kitchen to hear the mournful news of the dry-rot-under-the-kitchen-floorboards-down-there-see-it's-all-spongy-from-that-time-when-the-shower-leaked-all-down-the-wall. Tallboy didn't help much, he launched sadly into the account of the dry rot in his old house and how far it spread and oh yes I had the fruiting bodies that's the worst you know. I was tempted to kick him in the shin to give him a sign that this wasn't helping, so shut up you moron, but instead opted for the subtle approach and told him 'This isn't helping, so shut up you moron', which worked a treat.

Having spread doom and gloom in equal measure, we trotted off to that traditional British Bank Holiday haunt, B&Q, in search of water butts. Tallboy has a bee in his bonnet. He looks angrily out of the kitchen window whenever it rains, and rails at the amount of water going down the drain. We have a water butt fed by a gutter on one side of the new shed, which used to overflow when full. Tallboy has now fitted a hosepipe high up on the side, and trailed it artfully across the path so that it can trip up the unwary on their way to pegging out the washing top up the pond when the water butt is full. How much more water could we have, though, if only we diverted the downpipe from the house roof...

He has been scouring catalogues and DIY shops for such a diverter, rare and scant they are, and none to be had locally. He finally sourced one, triumphant for a minute, until he realised that he would need something into which to divert the rainwater from the downpipe. Downer. Again, no butts were to be had locally, so we braced ourselves and went for the mega-super-ultra huge DIY cathedral. Like everyone else in Bristol that afternoon, it appears.

Picking our way through crowds of people dawdling and exclaiming over irrelevant stuff like paint and bedding plants, we fetched up in the garden area at the water butt shrine. And there it was, the holy grail of water butts. And its twin brother. Big black butts (arrrrgggghhhhh the search hits), just what we needed. All 420 litres of them. Tallboy had huge plans to set them up in series, with the diverter feeding the first one, and the first one feeding the second one, and the second one feeding the pond. A middle-aged chap came over and looked interestedly at the shelf in front of us. I grabbed the one in front of me, and Tallboy reached up and got down the high one. Phew! Now all we had to do was thread our way back to the till.

It was like one of those army assault courses. Toddlers dodged out in front of me unexpectedly. Low-slung trolleys appeared by my feet, ready to trip me. Annoying slow people were destined to amble into the space I should by rights have been occupying. Manoeuvring my large butt through these obstacles was tough, but I did it. As we approached the checkout, I eyed the teenaged till-jockey, and dared Tallboy to tell him 'I like big butts and I cannot lie'. Needless to say he chickened out...

Back at home, Tallboy fussed around with his butts while I attacked the brambles and bindweed which were choking the unknown baby bush which the Ex's girlfriend had carefully propagated for me from the one in the Ex's back garden which I have always admired. The bush, that is, not the garden. Not that it's bad, I just couldn't say I admired it. Unlike the bush. Which I do. I had gloves and shears and I hacked and tugged and punctured myself and got stung by nettles and swore viciously but inaudibly (kids out playing next door) at the nastier plants and generally made rather good progress. Tallboy came to relieve me once he had finished butt-fussing and then putting out the washing. He didn't trip too badly on the pipe. I relocated to an overgrown flower bed with the intention of clearing it so that we could plant the runner bean plants we had been given.

Once I'd got the weeds out, it was only a matter of chasing away the frog and then removing the just slightly but not very subterranean enormous slabs of stone which were rendering any serious digging jarringly impossible. Tallboy trotted up with a barrow full of home-rotted compost, tipped it over the earth, then scooted off with an oath to get the washing in. He didn't trip too badly on the pipe. It was a minute before I felt a drop of rain, then there was a flash and a burst of thunder and sky started leaking right on top of me. I planted the fork in the mud and fled inside. Tallboy joined me with the slightly damp washing and a slight limp, and took up station just inside the door, breathlessly expectant.

Ah, right - the diverter. It was hooked up to butt No. 1 and within seconds the deluge was forcing rainwater through the pipe and into the butt. We nipped out to peek in, and gasped at the jet of water produced by the downpour. Back inside again, we could clearly hear the water jetting into the butt. It was like when you're downstairs in the kitchen with a slight muzzy headache the morning after cooking a jolly nice meal and drinking some terrific wine and having a super evening, and as you're trying to muster enough co-ordination to get some coffee underway, you hear your houseguest from last night shutting the toilet door upstairs, and you stand stock still with nowhere to turn as the floodgates open and he has the most unfeasibly interminable wee which you can't help but overhear and wish you couldn't. Or is that just me?

The rain lasted no more than five minutes; the butt was at least an eighth full. Tallboy was deliriously happy. Positively capering, my dear. I nipped next door to ask Nice Neighbours if I might pinch some of their bamboo canes for the bean plants, as they weren't using them this year, and Tallboy got planting. Job done, he came back into the kitchen and purposefully retrieved a bottle of beer from the fridge. Most uncommon behaviour on his part, but I supposed he had been working hard and deserved it. I couldn't help a raised eyebrow though. 'It's for the slugs!' he gestured with the bottle. Of course! The Slug Chalets of Death - The Slaughter Continues... Don't want the little blighters munching our bean plants.

I'm sorry if your Bank Holiday was marred by the thunderstorm at five o'clock in the afternoon. It was all Tallboy's fault, he was so utterly desperate for it to rain, you see. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd had a little raindance or two while my back was turned...

I'm not doing bad in my efforts to emulate Mr Gardner's hugely commendable weight loss of 10 stone. Current weight loss stands at 6 stone 2 lbs or very nearly 40 kg. I've dropped 14 BMI points and 5 or so dress sizes. I fit through narrow gaps and can walk up a flight of stairs without turning purple and needing a nice sit down. On the contrary, I now skip around lightly, unable to move from one end of school to the other without being cornered by admiring members of staff demanding to know the current weight loss total, my weight loss secret, or both. On several occasions, both inside and outside school, people have rather gratifyingly failed to recognise me.

As part of the weight loss campaign, I have done something I never though I would - I have joined the gym. I found out that as a council employee I qualify for a reduced rate of membership, and when I popped in to have a little peek at the place, I saw that they had taken down the mirrors, so I was sold.

I'm not a natural gym-goer. I don't particularly like looking an idiot, especially not when exerting myself vigorously. I thought it was time to bite the bullet though, and signed up. Last week I had my first fitness test with a very nice young man who gave me a strap to wear round my chest then made me pedal like a maniac on an exercise bike. I stunned both myself and him by being really rather fit - the daily walks over the past few months have paid off. Nice Young Man said he'd work out a program for me to follow which would help me achieve my dearest gym-based desire. For some reason, I'd like to do three press ups in a row. Since I can't even do one, it seems rather far-fetched, but he's confident I'll get there, so who am I to quibble?

Saturday evening was my first session under the new program. I read it through, understood about half of it, read it through again, increased my understanding by at least 0.009%, then asked the Bored Looking Young Lady at the desk if she could translate for me. We identified a block of weights work which she needed to demonstrate so she told me when I got to that bit to give her a call.

I trotted off for the first set in the weights room. The weights room is down the corridor and round the corner in a little room with some mirrors and a penetrating odour. Muttering to myself, I peered at the machines to identify them as possible candidates for my first exercises. Trouble was, my mental name for the machine and what they are actually called are poles apart. The Adductor, for example. Was this the push-the-bar-up-nearly-as-far-as-you-can-then-lower-it-gently-remembering-not-to-let-the-weights-bash-down machine? Or the how-well-can-you-impersonate-an-oven-ready-chicken-during-the-stuffing-process machine? I got there in the end...

That set over, I had to nip back to the main gym for 10 minutes of cardio-vascular stuff. On my way past the main hall I peeped in at the preparations for a pro wrestling bout due to take place later on that evening. I can't say I've ever really got the point of it, myself. Back in the gym, I plonked down onto a rowing machine and started to pull. After ten minutes, I had rowed 2 kilometres, this was enough, so I toppled off sideways and on shaking knees went to find Bored Looking Young Lady for help with the next set.

As we walked to the weights room, she held forth about the wrestlers. Not a fan either, it turned out. In the weights room, she showed me tricep curls and lateral raises, which turned out to be the standard posey moves that anyone with handheld weights in a movie will be performing. As she returned a weight to its rack, she noticed a bumpy sticker on it. 'It's Braille,' said a helpful young man next to her when he clocked her puzzled expression. 'So blind people know what it is.' 'Oh right!' said BLYL. 'I get it now! There are a load of them on the new machines in the gym. I thought they didn't have anything on them. I've been flicking them off with my nail all day...'

I scanned through the rest of the set and pointed out the last item. 'Er, it says press ups here.' 'Yes, that's press ups.' 'Er, yeah, 'cept I can't actually do them.' She looked at me with an expression that suggested she wasn't at all surprised at this, and said (with an intonation worthy of Little Britain) 'You could always do lady   press ups.' 'Er, OK then, how do you do them?' She showed me, then wandered off back to the gym, leaving me to work my way through the list. The first item was bicep curls, and I stood by the weight rack, plumb in front of the mirror, curling my bicep for all I was worth. The muscle boys do the same, except they're looking approvingly at themselves in the mirror. I had a little peek at myself and decided I probably wouldn't watch after all.

Back to the gym for another ten minutes of CV stuff, this time I leaped onto a bike and pedalled like a gibbon with ants in its ... er ... pant-area fur. I did 3 and three quarter kilometres in the ten minutes, this was enough, so I toppled off sideways and on shaking knees wandered back to the weights room where I could finish the last set at a gentle pace. Lastly, another ten minutes back in the gym, on a different bike. I have no idea how far I went, I was mesmerised by the TFT TV screen built into the bike, which allowed me to watch the Graham Norton dance thingy with no sound, to the accompaniment of GWR radio blaring out from speakers on the wall, which frankly did nothing for it. The TV picture obscured any useful information like how far I'd gone or how fast I was going, so I gave it ten minutes, then toppled off sideways and on shaking knees wandered over to the corner, there to stretch my poor old muscles.

You've no idea how much I'm enjoying it...

So, it was my exam today. I asked the dear people who provide my so-called training to book up the exam in April, preferably in Bristol or even closer to home. Which is why I found myself trekking across country today to take it. But let's rewind a smidge...

I spent the weekend and all of yesterday cramming like a mad crammer with a new, high-performance brain crowbar at an all-you-can-cram cramathon. When I got into bed at night, I had to do it carefully; too much of a shock as my head hit the pillow might have dislodged some crucial factette. It's how I do things - I can spend months carefully going through the training materials, but at the end of the day I can't retain it all and end up cramming like a good 'un.

I got up early this morning to continue the cramming - I had left my arch-nemesis (Certificate Services, if you must know) 'til last so that it would be fresh in my memory. Cramming done, I packed my lunchbox, verified for at least the third time that my driving licence with the scary looking Prisoner Cell Block H photo was indeed in my bag, checked the back door was locked, went to the loo, checked my driving licence was in my bag, checked the back door was locked, said goodbye to Pesky and headed off.

The examination centre was all the way across Bristol, and then a good way away still, past the airport. I could go the back way, or down the motorway. I had decided on motorway, then through town - possibly busier but unlikely to get stuck behind some arthritic tractor. How I regretted my well-reasoned choice as I sat in an unmoving queue at the end of the M32, and then again as I did a creditable weaver bird impression through the changed lanes and altered priorities they seem to have brought in as soon as my back was turned. I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that I had allowed myself more than double the worst-case-scenario travel time.

Driving across the river as I negotiated the Cumberland Basin, I mused how lovely it is for cities to be based round rivers. Wide, noble, silver - they stamp the place with gravitas and respectability. I imagine so, anyway. Bristol has rivers aplenty, don't get me wrong. It's just that with something like the second biggest tidal reach anywhere in the world (? maybe - I've had too much wine to bother checking my facts) most of what you see is mud. Either suspended in the brown swirling waters, or just banks of slick brown-ness with a pathetic trickle between them.

Heading out to the examination centre, I did pass my favourite road sign on the planet - it points off from the A38 and it says 'Nempnett Thrubwell'. How I love those words. It was almost worth the battle through town to have seen them.

The examination centre was a revelation. Last time it had been an anonymous hideous business building in the centre of Bristol. This time I was at a fantastic country manor with rolling landscaped grounds, views of the Mendips, and gorgeously fragranced Wisteria everywhere. I signed in at reception, apologising for arriving an hour ahead of time, and begged leave to sit in some nook so as to eat my lunch and skim through my book one last time. As I sat in the corner of the lounge, I could hear the conversation of a quartet of bids in the corner. 'You know, Mary's boy. He was GAY! He took her to London!' Reluctantly I blocked my ears and concentrated on DNS servers and subnetting.

As I finished my final skim, I became aware of another presence behind me - a nervous looking young man who headed straight for the toilets. When he returned I said hello, and asked if he was here to take an exam at all? Oh yes, he was. He'd failed it twice before but this time he was hoping to nail it. We chatted about computers for a bit until the brisk lady from the exam centre came down to fetch us.

We were quickly installed in a small attic room containing two computers and not much else. Did my companion mind where he sat, I wondered. Oh no, he told me, I failed at this one last time, I'm not superstitious though, I'll sit here again. I sat next to the window, the brisk lady logged me in, and I was away.

The exam comprises 50 questions, and you have two and a quarter hours to answer them all. The answers vary, sometimes you need to choose which is the right answer out of the four or five offered, sometimes you need to indicate which one or two or three or four or five out of the options shown combine to create the right answer. My heart beating hard and my stomach regretting my lunch, I started clicking. Two and a quarter hours sounds a long time - but it's not even three minutes per question. Sometimes it takes that long to understand what they're asking.

At about half time, my companion had finished his exam, waved as instructed to the camera monitoring us from the corner of the room, and was collected by the brisk woman. At last I could stretch out a bit notwithstanding the creaking chair. I could jiggle my leg and tap my pen. I could swear quietly at the bloody questions. Bliss.

I went through all the questions once, answering all but a few of the most tricky ones, went back and considered them, then started going back through and reviewing all my answers just to make sure I'd read the questions properly. I didn't even get halfway through my review before the time was up.

Heart hammering wildly, I clicked the 'End Exam Now' button. I had no feeling for whether I had answered enough correctly to hit the 700/1000 pass mark. The result failed to appear before me - instead up came the add comments screen. Ah yes, I'd indicated that I wanted to comment on a couple of questions. The desperately precise points I'd wanted to make at the end about format and terms and layout seemed rather irrelevant to me now they were standing in the way of me seeing my result, but I tapped away with shaking fingers, then clicked the magic button again. I looked away from the screen, out of the window, unable to bear the suspense. With my peripheral vision I could see that the screen had changed, and glanced back. The first word I saw was 'congratulations' and I breathed a deep sigh of relief and waved like a gibbon at the camera to indicate my pressing desire to pick up my printout and get the hell out of there. I asked the brisk lady how my companion had done. Composing her features into a suitable expression, she told me he had failed.

Relaxed and chuffed to bits, I drove back across country and arrived home to a flurry of enquiring phonecalls, emails and msn messenger er messages. I have not studied tonight. I have eaten at a leisurely pace. I have been for a walk. I have sat down with the Sun to watch the DVD produced by the school to document the daily life of the students there. On occasion I have uttered the word 'orang-utang' which, it appears, is the cue for the Sun to start capering madly to the accompaniment of the singsong incantation 'constipated monkey, constipated monkey'. So has Tallboy. Uttered the word 'orang-utang' I mean, not the mad capering bit. I have had a teeny weeny glass or two of wine. Life is good.

The exam was Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure, nicknamed in some quarters 'the beast'. It was a swine. I got 909/1000. The wine has deprived me of the ability to put down in words how chuffed I am. I think I'd better go and have another glass...

Another little break from the nightmare that is revising everything there is to know about Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure. *brain melts* Ooh by the way, while we're on revision, I discovered a neat little site today quite by accident. Once you've done the tedious signing up business, you can create sets of flashcards to help your revision along. I find it much easier to do this than learn a horrible list of port numbers and so on. It has been a really useful tool for me, and if any of you out there are in the same slough of revision despond, you might like it too - click here.

And now, on with the post...

Here at Weevil Mansions, we're dead keen on giving things a home. Over the past few years we've done our bit for wildlife. We dug a laborious pond in soil of finest clay so that we could house newts and frogs and toads and ramshorn snails and dragonfly larvae and pondskaters and oooh all those icky microscopic doohickeys that Tallboy likes to look at under his usb microscope. We constructed a logpile in the corner of the garden for those creatures who favour that kind of habitat. So what? you might think - bear in mind that in order to create the log pile we had to resist the temptation of burning the wood... Tallboy constructed a fine birdhouse out of old wood, which he lovingly positioned on the shady side of the old shed so the bluetwits would have somewhere to live. OK so they didn't actually move in, I blame the pigeon we recruited as estate agent. Never trust anyone who will work for peanuts...

This weekend, Tallboy has been in home provision overdrive. During the week, we both noticed a spadger on the new shed, skipping around and flapping with interest at the eaves. No gaps there mate, sorry. Tallboy was musing about constructing a home for them, and went off to get the handy wildlife book which we love (apart from the bit that refers to newts as gormless [which they totally are not]). The book had a sketch of a spadger home - not just a one-room job but a tenement block. They like being social, apparently, though the entry holes must each be on a different side. Tallboy was keen to get carpenting, impeded by one small factor - we'd burned all the wood (apart from the logpile, natch). I came to the spadgers' rescue by spotting a gate in a skip - the building work at the Nice Neighbours' place is drawing to a close, but there was still bounty to be had. Tallboy went and had a quiet word and came back bearing a great gate. Soon, where there had been a wooden entry prevention device, there appeared a des res in finest natural materials, complete with bamboo perches. He stuck it up on the shady side of the new shed, where it has been ignored by several spadgers already.

He then stood at the kitchen window and mused about the wooden climbing frame at the bottom which was originally designed to keep the kids happy but is now possibly the country's only bird feeding station which cost several hundred pounds... 'I could make another one and put it on the far end there, in the shade, what do you think?' 'Yeah, go for it if you like,' I responded vacantly, mind on subnetting and routing protocols. Later, he pointed out the new addition, proud and everything. I was pleased that the gate had stretched to another birdhouse, that was good value. 'Oh no, there wasn't enough wood left. I used that shelf, you know the one that your router used to sit on before it fell down.' 'Ah the one I was hoping might miraculously be put up again, this time securely?' 'Er, yeah, that one...'

He's also been fretting about my lupins. I actually grew some plants last year. From seed. They survived and everything. Lupins are my absolute favourite flowers, I remember being fascinated by them when I was a kid, particularly by the diamond that is left in the centre of the leaf cluster after the rain. Magical. Then there's the Monty Python connection, but don't get me started. Anyway, Tallboy had noticed the leaves looking slightly nibbled, and suspected the slimy evilness of slugs. I'd forgotten all about this, but we had bought some slug defences some time ago in Lidl. Tallboy emerged triumphant from the garage, brandishing what for all the world looked like a four inch square monopoly house. Ah yes, the Slug Chalet of Death, how could I forget? Truly, the ideal residence for these most unwelcome of visitors. Tallboy sacrificed a sploosh of beer and set it outside to tempt the muculent marauders. The death toll as of this morning stands at twelve...

Last week I got some gum on my bum. Ooh, I hadn't realised how rhymy that was 'til I wrote it down.. I was over in one of the sixth form suites, fixing 'puters, and leaned against a tabletop. Bad mistake, as I should have realised when I felt a little tug on standing up straight again. Sadly, it wasn't until I had been sitting back at my desk that I realised the awful truth; by then, the gum was on my chair and well and truly squidged into my trousers. Meh. At least it was the end of the day by then, so I drove home with rage in my heart(and gum on my bum).

Removing my trousers (there go the search engine hits!) as soon as I got through the door, I quelled Tallboy's interested look with a rant about gum and trousers and the horrendous interaction between the two. I insisted that we go out for a walk to the shop, there to buy the most horrifically efficient chemical-laden substance known to man, in order to put the unholy alliance between gum and clothing asunder. It did occur to me that I had been quite lucky, in many ways; much of my fixing computer time is spent underneath desks, and I won't spoil your dinner by describing what stuff is like under there. Suffice to say that I'm amazed I haven't had any in my hair yet.

The product we purchased promised to remove the gum, but earnestly enjoined me to test an area for colourfastness first. This I did; not a trace of pigment left the garment, so I splooshed the stuff on with gay abandon. And watched in horror as a pool of blackness oozed out in a chrysanthemum of doom on the draining board. My resolve held, and I left it for the required amount of time, and the gum came off, and the trousers were still black, and my rage was quelled slightly. I did take the receipt in the next day though, and demand recompense.

My heart sank when I went into the office the next morning - I'd forgotten about the gum on the chair - it was too squidged to pick off. Baldrick proffered an aerosol, suggesting it was worth a try. 'Computer solvent' it said on the label. Adopting my jocular office voice, I said, 'Ooh, I'd better be careful not to spray it near the computers then. I don't want to dissolve any!' Oh, how we chortled... Actually, we did giggle a little bit, it was mildly funny, and to be honest we leap upon any opportunity for a spot of light relief.

I recalled another product which was strangely named. I found myself, as a university student, in dire need of a hole punch. I trundled off to the student union shop, and found a cheap one. I was a little put off by the name of the product, but I decided to be brave - I was big and it was only little. According to the box, it was a 'student perforator'. Eek!

Later in the week, a member of staff came in to complain that some herbert or herberts unknown had stuck a strip of double sided tape across a monitor. Did we, he wondered, have anything to get it off with? Baldrick handed over the Computer Solvent, which the member of staff gratefully received, and toddled off with in his hands. Within a couple of steps, he had turned around, and I could see from the look on his face what was coming. 'I'd better be careful where I spray this!' he said. 'I don't want to dissolve any computers! Heh heh heh!' Baldrick and I smiled weakly at him. As his footsteps disappeared away down the room, we looked at each other and shook our heads. 'Nah,' I said. 'Mmm,' agreed Baldrick. 'That kind of thing's only funny when _we_ say it...'

Quick five minutes for a post then back to study (exam looming...)

Tallboy came home yesterday and headed straight for the dictionary. The word wasn't there. Not in the old falling apart dictionary, nor in the new birthday-present-from-mum dictionary. 'Podgy' was there, fine, but 'podger' was nowhere to be seen.

His colleague and best chum at work, DIY Derek, had referred to a metal rod, ground into a taper at one end, as his podger. Tallboy had never heard this term before, and assumed that it was of the same sort of ilk as 'doofer' or 'whatsit'. No, insisted Derek, it was a real word. And not just some local dialect either, an engineering term, no less.

Tallboy wasn't convinced that his leg wasn't being pulled, and the lack of the word in the dictionary seemed to confirm it. However, when he did what would have been my first move and fired up the 'puter, a quick Google showed more podgers than you could shake a (metal, ground at one end) stick at.

What's it for, you may just possibly be wondering (award yourself two housepoints if you already know). Apparently, it's for lining holes up. 'Ah, I get you!' I said, when Tallboy explained this. 'It's like when you're trying to file a bunch of papers in a ring binder and you try and align the edges by doing the newsreader shuffle on the desk but it doesn't quite work, so you poke a pencil through and jiggle it to line the holes up so the whole lot will slip over the ring in a one-er rather than doing it bit by bit?' 'Er, yeah...'

All five of us today spent an hour together doing something we all enjoyed; indeed, an event so rare as to merit recording.

I'd asked Tallboy if he fancied a game of badminton over the weekend, and if so, would StepD like to join us again. Aware that three is an awkward badminton number, I asked Methane Boy if there was any way on the planet I could possibly persuade him to make up the fourth member of the party. To my amazement, he said yes. Well, he grunted in an affirmative kind of manner, at any rate. Then the Ex brought the Sun back on Saturday night, and I told him he was coming too, so there were going to be five of us.

It didn't start desperately smoothly. We'd booked the court (No. 1 in the Summer Hall - we like it in there, we don't seem to fall over as often) for 11.00, requiring us to drag Methane Boy and the Sun from their pits at the ungodly hour of ten. StepD was already up, having woken us at 8 by 'creeping' (her term, NOT mine) downstairs. Tallboy gathered together various water bottles, racquets, shuttlecocks, etc, along with what one might call a towel or (more accurately) one of the terry nappies I used when the Sun was a baby. The Sun moaned as he realised we were going to walk to the Leisure Centre. I fixed him with a steely gaze and told him that was the last moan I was going to hear from him that day. Do you know, I was right!

As we surged out of the front door, a sixth member of the party made her presence felt. Pesky doesn't like to be left out when there's something interesting in the offing. 'OK,' I said, 'We're going to have to run away from her. We need to get out of sight of her down the road.' The cries of disbelief died away as they realised I was serious. Pesky, if she can see you, will follow you. This once very nearly led to a nasty squashing incident on the main road. We all jogged down the road, water swishing, racquets akimbo, giggling like loons. We managed to leave that arthritic 14 year old cat behind. Just.

Half way down the road, Tallboy asked Methane Boy if he had brought his glasses. No, he had forgotten. Back he went to get them, while we wandered down to the end of the road then hung around waiting for him. He couldn't have played without them, he'd have had no chance of seeing anything. Ideal opponent in many ways...

Finally, we made it to the Leisure Centre and claimed our court, where we walloped shuttlecocks round for an hour, and generally had a good time. The kids all had fun, and so did Tallboy and I. The Sun was initially unable to hit anything at all except himself, but soon got his eye in. His earlier reluctance to attend was replaced by a fervour for the game, and at the end he enquired earnestly of Tallboy whether we might make this a weekly event.

We took it in turns to sit out while the other 4 played; on my turn I was able to observe the other players and their different styles of play.

Tallboy

Tall and rangy, with the reach of an orangutang recently given a session on the rack. Highly competitive, goes for every shot, particularly the impossible ones. Often to be found on his knees at the end of a rally. Rehearses mis-timed or mis-hit shots after the event. Vocal in his disappointment at missed shots.

Speciality shot - vicious smash from an impossible height at an unfeasible angle.

Weevil

Not tall and definitely not rangy. Quicker on court than you might imagine, often able to return shots that Tallboy had thought were winners. Restrains urge to shout expletives at missed shots, instead contenting herself with mouthing them at Tallboy in an attempt a) to vent the frustration and b) put Tallboy off.

Speciality shot - rocketing smash straight to opponent's testicles. This has proved satisfyingly offputting...

The Sun

Erratic in direction of shot, but able to sustain decent rally. Can return the shuttlecock in three or less strikes. Gets very sweaty and often needs to run off court to wipe self down with nappy.

Speciality shot - serving to self.

StepD

Tall and enthusiastic. Enjoys sending her father racing round the court. Often misses sitters, which generally then land on her head.

Speciality shot - mock tennis serve.

Methane Boy

Tall and unused to physical exertion. Able to wallop shuttle high and hard. Always beatable by a little dolly over the net. Will not move more than one pace to return the shuttle.

Speciality shot - assessing that more than one pace is required to return this shuttle, keeping both feet planted together and following with his eyes its downward trajectory, ending with a sad little dink onto the court.