by Writing about a tennis match, as I’ve done dozens of times here and on my previous blog, has always been a useful exercise. I think that’s because tennis is such a mental game; when I read back my accounts of old tennis matches I get a pretty good idea of where my head was at at the time.
My head was not in a good place yesterday morning, but at least the sun was shining and I wouldn’t be out there for very long anyway. When we played in the club champs in April under a shorter format he thrashed me 9-1, rattling off eight games in a row. Before yesterday’s match he said he a bit of an upset stomach but even if he’d had a mild case of Zika I wouldn’t have fancied my chances. We practised our serves and a few more of mine went in than they have of late. He called W as I spun my Wilson to determine choice of serve. That surprised me: his name begins with M. It came up M and, encouraged to some extent by my practice serves, I opened proceedings. I immediately double-faulted, but I won my serve to 30, broke him and held again to move ahead 3-0. I defended well and was error-free in those three games. Gosh, I hope I’ll have enough pink Robinsons to see me through. I might be here a while after all. But my opponent picked up the pace, I mistimed a few shots, and it all started to crumble. By the time I next looked like winning a game, the set had almost gone. I fell behind 3-6, 0-2. Eight games in a row. It’s happened again! He then eased off the gas ever so slightly and to my relief I won a game. Two in fact. At 4-2 down the end was surely near, but he began to struggle physically and I sensed I had a semblance of a chance if I dug deep. I then surprised myself with the number of winners I hit on both wings. I served for the set at 5-4 and was broken to love, but I got a second opportunity at 6-5 and played a solid game to close out the set. One set all, and something wasn’t right down the other end. Will he carry on? Ask if I’ll play a super tie-break? He did neither of those things. Instead he shook my hand. It didn’t exactly feel like a win for me but I was happy to find some rhythm, some energy, and to cut down on the double faults. I’m playing again tomorrow night in this winter competition that I’d been hoping would just go away. Meanwhile I was happy to see Andy Murray win his second Wimbledon. For the first time in eleven grand slam finals he caught a break and avoided Federer and Djokovic. Serena on the other hand looks set to become the greatest of all time on the women’s side.
I spent a lot of time with my cousin’s family at the weekend. My aunt and uncle had come up from Timaru, and flew back down this morning with my cousin’s two youngest boys. On Saturday my cousin treated us all to dinner at Logan Brown, a place I’ve walked past literally hundreds of times and never thought I’d go in. Fain daining (that’s how you pronounce it, right?) is a completely foreign concept to me. But the kids helped make the atmosphere relaxing. I had gnocchi and gurnard and an apple tart and it was all amazing with drizzles and garnishes and Portobello mushrooms and the way they somehow cooked the cauliflower. It was so good I could have easily eaten it all again. Come to think of it there might even have been room in my tummy for a third go-around. I suppose being filled up isn’t what you go to Logan Brown for. Yesterday afternoon my aunt and uncle came over to my place for the first time. It was great to have a chat and to drag out the map of Romania and talk about some of the places I might go to with people who genuinely seemed to care. We then had dinner at my cousin’s place. How wonderful it was to spend time with people I feel comfortable with, and to share jokes and ideas and hopes and frustrations. That’s something I don’t experience nearly enough.
I gave a good English lesson tonight. We talked about this morning’s final of Euro 2016 and words for countries and nationalities. When I talked about plurals of words ending in ‘y‘ I’m sure I lost him, but his wife was in the room, she knew what a vowel was, and she clearly understood why we write countries and nationalities but boys, days and trolleys. We discussed flight times and routes to Myanmar and the UK, and we went through some airport-related vocabulary.
My parents will be back from their trip in about two weeks. They’ve had bad colds, the weather hasn’t cooperated, and it’s all taken quite a bit out of them. It’s easy to forget that they’re 66 and 67.
I’m flying up to Auckland on Wednesday evening.
