Willies and Boobs

Warming Ups

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Off on holiday but not feeling quite as well as I’d hoped by now. My post-chemo eczema is a bit itchy and still pretty tired, but I had worried that I might have to cancel this trip altogether and I would have hated to let the kids down, so I have to take that victory.

We are back at Center Parcs, but for once didn’t try to get here by 10am so we could have a full day of fun. We just made our way casually over, arriving at about 3pm. To be honest, the first day at Center Parcs is always the worst, because you’ve got new arrivals and people staying once they’ve checked out and the swimming pool is way too full of people. So missing that is another victory.

Not that I will be going swimming this week, as Catie and Phoebe are insistent that I don’t risk going into such a crowded area and swim around in water full of germs and Ernie is convinced that I might swallow a toe nail (?). So when they are swimming, I will be chilling and as much as I will miss going on the slides I think we can call that a win too.

I am going to try and be involved as possible with everything apart from the swimming. When we arrived we played a game on the blackboard in the lodge where you all had to draw a squiggle and then move along one and try and turn another person’s squiggle into a picture. It quickly descended into rudeness and I am not sure if I was the instigator.

In my down time I am going to try and read a book just for fun, rather than with an eye on doing a Book Club and I started reading “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” bu Gabrielle Zevin, which I’ve had for a while, though I didn’t know much about, but had been recommended by a few people. Turns out it’s about nerds creating computer games and I am very much on board already. The characters and writing are immediately engaging and it’s the sort of casually brilliant poetic prose that makes me laugh at the idea that I would ever call myself a writer. Anyway I doubt Gabrielle will be on the Book Club, so I can just enjoy reading it.

Retro RHLSTP with Rhys James is up today.

Watch the full video for free here

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I was feeling rougher than I’d hoped I would this morning and was glad of the extra snooze time when the others went swimming.

But we had activities booked in the afternoon and I am keen to participate, so we got on our bikes and went down to the Sports Plaza where Ernie was shooting some crossbows (hopefully foam arrows for everyone’s sake) and Phoebe and me had booked a tennis court.

I managed to play some light tennis in the hot summer sun without feeling too wonky. Phoebe taught me a game where you are allowed to hit the ball three times on your side and let it bounce as much as you want, but if the ball starts rolling on your side then you lose the point. It was good to be doing some exercise again for the first time in a month. My daughter is naturally good at sport, but very hard on herself if she makes mistakes or doesn’t succeed straight away. I think we’re probably only a couple of years away from her giving me a fully competitive match.

It reminded me of playing tennis against my mum on some camp site in France when I was about 16. My mum and dad were very good tennis players and both sporty, but one hot French summer I did manage to at least compete against her and thought I might pinch a set. It’s an important moment when you realise that a parent is genuinely trying their best against you and that you have a shot at beating them. I feel like the game was so exciting that other families were watching. I was briefly ahead, but mum won it.

I think the cancer-imposed isolation means that doing anything that isn’t lying in bed playing Civilisation II feels wonderful. It’s so lovely just cycling around with the kids, seeing how much more confident they are with each passing year. The kids have found a horrible but huge stagnant pond in the trees behind our cabin and they took me out today to investigate. It’s so big that we haven’t even got. all the way round it yet. That’s a jaunt for tomorrow.

We packed a lot into today with ten-pin bowling and watching the semi-final that will determine who England play in the third-place play off (spoilers - it will be France). It struck me that in my daughter’s life of watching International football England have at least got to the quarter finals of every competition and managed to get to finals and win a couple. For me it’s been a lifetime of England doing badly, giving occasional hope, for her, it’s unbelievable if they don’t make the semi-finals.

Can England men go all the way this time?

Nah.

You heard it here first.