Published The Advocate, January 15, 2005


SITTING up here on the balcony in trackie daks and a polar-fleeced top, I have been watching the kids on the beach below surfing in wetsuits.

The other day I walked along the same beach to test the shallows for a swim. It was so cold my feet were still aching 10 minutes later.

My mate James, a stalwart member of the Burnie surf life saving club, recommended the civic pool, which he said was heated to 28 degrees. I am not yet that big a wuss.

Someone else suggested the rock pools at Somerset Beach. Apparently the water trapped inside the pools is like bathwater by the end of the day.

Unfortunately, the same pools are home to the blue-ringed octopus.

I have been tapering off since the Athens Olympics and, not swimming, I have lost form. The bike is coated in dust. I had to withdraw from the Christmas Carnivals.

So I was not in the best shape for tennis when Danny suggested a game.

I said I had not held a racquet in nearly a year. Danny said he had not played for five years but would come out of retirement especially for the occasion. Right then.

In sport as in life, I try to display the emotions of a tundra. Show nothing. Give nothing away. I wore a cap bearing the slogan: ``I am not your Opponent – I am your Enemy.’’

Danny, an unassuming little chap, plays his tennis the same way. His best shot is a dainty, sliced backhand. A girly shot.

The points piled up against me. I ripped a couple of aces from the old arsenal: a cracker down the centre line and a vicious spinner that hooked away even further on the southwest wind.

Very quickly, my left knee became mushy and sore from taking all the weight of the serve. I had to slow down.

Danny perched at the net. I took deliberate aim at him and smacked the ball straight into the net. Useless. He looked quickly away to hide a cruel smirk.

I was sweating; he kept on his Collingwood beanie from the 1990 premiership.

Afterwards, sliding off a bar stool, I felt the hamstring tighten and called for another beer. I sat there gingerly flexing my leg until the hammy relaxed. I had another beer.

The tennis was on the Sunday and I moved house on Tuesday, barely able to raise my arms I was so stiff.

With all the aches and pains of a crash-test dummy, it was doubly excruciating going up and down the steps a hundred times with heavy boxes.

Now I cannot find anything. The iron has disappeared. With any luck, the tennis racquet will go missing too.

Danny let me borrow his lawnmower, well aware it would cause a different set of muscle groups to scream in protest.

I did the lawns yesterday and now I am stretching my sore back and wondering if I will ever again have the pleasure of not being in pain.