Friday 7 September 2007

Relocation, relocation, relocation

I was positively Federeresque in my on court behaviour.

As for the tennis.... nothing like him. I was more of a meteorological microcosm. I was hot when it was hot and as the conditions got milder, so did my tennis. Sadly it stayed cold.

Oh well at least I can go back to Roland Garros to practise with a friend. Problem is finding anyone who is free of a morning to traipse out to the Bois de Boulogne to play on the fabled courts.

I love tennis and I love playing but I have to say even my enthusiasm would begin to wane with regular trips out there, having to lug all my gear on the metro.

As I was preparing for the actual match, my mobile phone rang. It was the headteacher telling me that my eldest daughter had vomited at school.

And could I come to get her. For a moment I thought about telling the headteacher that I was indisposed as I was preparing for a match at Roland Garros.

But then I figured that my child would probably be instantly placed in the care of social services to keep her away from her delusional father.

So I said that my partner would come to take her away.

I did feel that it was almost stepping into the traditional role of woman dropping everything to go and tend the sick child.

But as she was in the local supermarket but five minutes away from school it was logical for her to answer the mayday call.

If she had been at work then I would have sacrificed my match.

The child is better now but she's really rather sad that she's only been able to go to school on Monday and Thursday. By contrast her sister who has never struck me as the natural student is relishing her return.

She brandished her first book at me on Tuesday afternoon. Was so excited that she could read one of the phrases in the tome that she didn't even let me put the shopping bags down.

I think she was just rubbing her sister's nose in it - so to speak - that she had managed to string together two consecutive days without dispatching the contents of her stomach at school.

The five-year-old will have her first Saturday morning at school while I have the first training session with the soccer team.

There's been some electricity breakdown at Stade Louis Lumière — our usual ground. So we're relocating to Stade Pershing in the Bois de Vincennes.

Another day. Another bois.