Approximately a year on and it’s time to deal with the elephant in the room, and I don’t mean my shadow. My keep fit efforts have gone from bad to worse. I’ve done no running, forgotten how to use the gym locker, gone from outfield to in goal in my increasingly rare appearances for the Mighty Mierda and played cricket twice. The application forms I was going to apply for remain either gathering dust or un-applied for. To be honest I enjoyed writing about keep fit way more than I enjoyed doing it but then I suspect you all know that already. I had not factored in how hard it would be to get 5 minutes to train with two children. I mean, I expect it’s easy if that’s what you really enjoy, you make room for it the way I do for cooking, reading, watching football and deciding who would win a fight between Sid the Shark and a man-size pork scratching, but when it’s the least favourite of your daily activities it’s the first to go.
So first it’s time to pay huge respect to some real amateur sporting heroes. Firstly there was my friend Mark. Not only older than me but arguably as large at the outset, Mark really did do this year’s Brighton Marathon and in doing so raised thousands for the Martlet’s Hospice. The Marathon happened to be on one of the hottest days so far this year and I was sweating just walking to the New Church Road turn round point with Amy in the buggy. Mark looked quite fresh at this stage though I gather it all went wall-like soon after. However, he pushed through and did it. Massive respect. Now others of our loose gang of Brighton supporting drinking buddies known as the GDC (for Gentleman’s Drinking Club) are being inspired to their own version of the Olympics for the same very worthwhile cause. It’s a massively happy time for us Brighton supporters as we prepare to move in to our swanky new stadium and play against the likes of Palace, West Ham, Leeds, Portsmouth and Notts Forest, lead by the world’s coolest Uruguayan. But it’s tinged with sadness for those who will never see it and some of those were helped by the Martlets so it’s a cause very close to the GDC’s hearts. Have a look at http://www.justgiving.com/BHA-Martlets if you have a spare 5 minutes.
So what have I been up to if it’s not training? Well apart from lots of time in the kitchen (see I told you I wasn’t taking it seriously) the Brighton Festival has just been and gone and the literary part has inspired both me and oldest child Owen. We got tickets for workshops with two illustrators and an author (Guy Parker-Rees, Bruce Ingman and Sean Taylor respectively). Sean wrote the brilliant “BOING!” and Bruce illustrated it and it has become our favourite childrens book ever (way better than The Gruffalo)! Since then Owen has been drawing non stop. The local Green Party are going to send the heavies round soon the amount of paper he’s going through and it’s all good stuff too. But it finally got me off my backside on another mini project I’ve had kicking about for a while. I have, from time to time, especially after lights out (when you can’t see a book), made up stories for Owen. Since he doesn’t tell me to stop and has been known to request them, I thought them mildly entertaining but with inspiration from the Festival and lots of prodding from N I finally wrote one down to send off to a literary agent. Having finally found one I both liked the look of and who was taking debut submissions (a process that took as long as writing the story down and editing it) I emailed it off and it is currently sitting in the ‘slush pile’. Whether anything comes of this other than a slew of rejection letters only time will tell, but at least I don’t have to disappoint myself surrounded by pink lycra, sweaty muscles and hi-NRG Kylie remixes...........
