Forwards and occasionally sidewards – everyday musings of life

When Gary produced a bag of bare wooden bats—completely devoid of rubber—for today’s fun club fun day, every player’s carefully honed skills, technical advantages, and practised routines were instantly rendered useless. As an additional handicap, the A-team players were forced to wear eyepatches for the doubles matches. This was shaping up to be a ‘fun day’ in the absolute truest, most chaotic sense of the word.

The wooden bats succeeded wildly in levelling the playing field, prompting endless laughs as shots flew in entirely unpredictable directions. Thankfully, the eyepatches were only mandatory for the opening round; I was already becoming dizzy and disoriented, ultimately concluding that I’d make an utterly hopeless pirate.

As if bare wood and temporary blindness weren’t enough of a handicap, the more experienced players were also assigned a massive point deficit. This effectively guaranteed we had zero chance of winning a single thing. But hey, it’s a fun day.

Having had quite enough ‘fun’ for one morning, I returned home to tackle the packing for my early morning departure to Glasgow. Remembering the noise levels on my recent train journey back from Exeter, I had ordered a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and loaded my iPad with essential reading and listening material. Whether six hours of technology will keep me adequately occupied—and prevent me from eavesdropping on my fellow passengers—remains to be seen.

This trip used to be a routine commute for me, yet today it feels as though I’m embarking on an epic expedition to the far side of the globe. Still, after spending the morning playing competitive sports with one eye covered and a plank of wood for a bat, navigating cross-country rail transport should be a walk in the park.

Let the next round of fun begin.