25th game of tennis

Rajesh and I just celebrated our 25th game of tennis together. We are getting better and better and having some titanic rallys and wonderfully close matches. We are both utterly hooked. It's been so much fun. 

Playing tennis at Rajesh's new home

Rajesh's new flat has a tennis court and we've started playing on Wednesday evening. I couldn't be more thrilled. I love tennis so much and have really missed playing since my prior tennis partner, Brendan, left Sydney several years ago. 

After the tennis, we have been going to the pub for a meal. They do a Thai Beef salad that is absolutely to die for.

Table tennis with Chris

Chris and I have loads of fun playing table tennis. And we're getting quite good!

 

Playing croquet in Coogee

Great fun with lots of laughs.

Playing table tennis with Chris

There is a table tennis table under the Harbour Bridge and Chris and I have been making the most of it.  So much fun.

Tennis

Brendan and I played tennis again today.  We're so evenly matched and had a great titanic battle.  So much fun.  And lovely in the sunshine.

Volleyball on Camps Bay beach

Brendan and Eva were in Cape Town at the same time as me, so we organised a big game of volleyball on Camps Bay beach.  All the old volleyball crowd came, and Russell and Heather joined us too.  So much fun!!  I impressed everyone with my power serve, great to find out I haven't lost it even after over 10 years of non use.

Two Ocean's Fun Run

I had every intention of keeping up with my little nephew on this 5 km fun run but after 5 minutes I realised that was going to be impossible!  So I took it easy and enjoyed walking and chatting with Jo, punctuated by some occasional running.  We didn't break any speed records, but thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere.  And we had enough energy to sprint the last 100 metres to the finish in front of all the crowds!!

My new toy

Yes, we have now got a paddle ski to add to our beach toys. We took it to Dee Why Beach to try it out and had tons of fun. Its great to be back in a city with wonderful beaches. Didn't realise how much I missed it in the UK. Those English beaches just weren't the same!

Getting out to sea was pretty hard at times with big waves to get over !



It was not always graceful. Nothing like a mouthful of sea water!


PS Thanks to Ally for taking the photos

Cheshire Triathlon

Doing a triathlon was a life goal for both of us. Despite our rather lax training, we did rather well. 250 metre swim, followed by a 20 km cycle and a 2.5 km run. A great sense of achievment afterwards - and I'm now motivated to attack a longer in a couple of months time. Colleen did it with us while Steve supported with gusto. He's going to do it next time too. A great day out.

Unwinding after. Silly devils through bread.

Our new Audi: Ally got to borrow an Audi A4 from work for the weekend so we drove up to Cheshire in style. We could rather get used to a car like this!

Serving up a storm

I had fun tonight. Went to the "tennis extravagana evening" at the gym. All the tennis enthusiasts (must have been over 50 of us!) at the gym met up with all the tennis coaches and we did fun exercises accross 9 courts.

I was a bit nervous about going because my tennis is still rather shaky and i'm struggling with the new technieques i've been taught. it's like being a beginner again. Still, i needn't have worried - we were at all levels and there was a friendly, jovial atmosphere about.

One thing i can do is serve. While i struggle to get my forearm balls to go anywhere but in the net or catapaulting to the roof, my serve seems to just go in. So i was delighted to discover that one of the exercises was "fastest serve competition" They had one of those speed monitor things that tells you how many miles an hour an hour your ball flew over the net. The winner was 95 miles an hour. I managed 87 miles an hour - which i was very chuffed with. I also managed to hit the hardest shot of my group (over 100 miles) but it didn't go in unfortunately!! As my tennis coach said "If i can manage to get those in all the time, i needn't worry to much about my faulty forearm.

Still, it's all coming on (i only stated a few weeks ago) and I'm having fun. Also meeting lots of great people. Ally's tennis is also coming on in leaps and bounds.

Memories of playing rugby at school

• Jenny Mallet's barefoot brigade (aged 6).
• My first match (against Rondebosch).  Getting under the ruck. Apparently I sucked my thumb, much to mum's embarrassment.
• Mum coming to watch all my matches, come rain or shine.
• Having a long bath after a match.
• Playing lock in the earlier days. Later I moved to flank.
• Orange segments at half time.
• A rugby tour to Port Elizabeth.
• Being trained by David Mallet, Jenny and Nick Mallet's brother.
• Being trained by Spencer King. Running up and down the hill. Spencer often yelled so loudly, the local neighbours complained. Practice tackling of the biggest boy in the team.
• Scoring a try against a really tough team. I was the only member in the team to score a try that day.
• Playing ill. Spencer was impressed.
• Winning an award for "Most improved rugby player".
• In my later years at school, I did not play rugby due to Scheuermann's disease. I was sad at the time but in retrospect, it was the right decision. Thank you mum!