Sue's Sports Starter by Sue_Thearle

Hello again chums. Happy half-term to you all. I would love to say I have been parent of the year, whizzing the children effortlessly from one activity to the other…..but that would be a slight fib. I have worked for the last 8 days straight and there hasn’t been a huge amount of time for day trips and jolly japes. I have been working a lot of late shifts – starting mid-afternoon and finishing at midnight and I must confess I had forgotten how they play havoc with your body clock. I got so used to early mornings when I worked on Breakfast TV, that I never seemed to have a problem going to bed late and getting up early to go to work. Although I may have looked like an old bat, I certainly coped much better with the lack of sleep that way round.

But I have been all over the place with the late/start late finish. I find it is almost impossible to go straight to bed when you stagger through the front door after midnight. You are so hyped up from being at work that you need a good hour to (a) scrape all that TV make-up off and (b) unwind. So I have been going to bed well after 1am and waking, or should I say being woken at around 6.30am by the bundle of energy and fun that is my son. He is so excited to see me he hurls himself onto me in bed and any lingering chance of further sleep disappears instantaneously. Yesterday morning first thing he came in brandishing his singing/dancing Elmo….. I think we can safely say that was a low point. Mummy was slightly, errrr, grumpy and didn’t much care that Elmo had a cute laugh when you knocked him over. In fact I felt more inclined to rip Elmo’s batteries out. Ho hum. My daughter arrived in the nick of time, or Elmo and I may have come to blows…….

On the slightly brighter side we have been out on our bikes a fair bit and I have of course managed the obligatory spinning class. In fact in yet another alarming sign of advancing middle age, I had to ask the instructor to turn the music down. It is no exaggeration to say it was so loud it made my ears hurt. And yet I seemed to be the only person suffering any discernible discomfort. Oh dear. Maybe it was all the shouting at the TV last weekend as we sat and watched the Rugby World Cup Final. My heart wanted the All Blacks to win and yet my head was so backing France, after I had tipped them to win it three weeks ago. Indeed I had put my money where my mouth was and backed them each way at 16-1.

So on the one hand I wanted the best side to win, while on the other, I found my sudden enthusiasm for all things french almost impossible to suppress. It was certainly tough on them to lose by a single point. But then there is something so joyfully indifferent about the French and their attitude to everything, that I imagined them afterwards sipping a glass of fine wine, smoking a Gauloises and putting it all behind them with a Gallic shrug. Mind you I am also hoping that the first thing  French Coach Marc Lievremont did, was shave that moustache off.....Marvellous. Right well I must love you and leave you. I'm not working today and so we are heading off on a day trip. I have no idea where. All I can tell you is that sandwiches have been made and the sun is shining. It will certainly be an adventure and no, Elmo is not invited…….