Wimbledon
is in crisis. No, don’t panic, they still have strawberries and I
believe the cream situation is also under control. No, this is, if you
can believe it, a problem for the well-manicured lawns of SW19. For,
you see, a number of players seem to have grown rather too fond of the
grass. So fond in fact that they have developed a habit of throwing
themselves at it rather hard in an effort to make an imprint of their
body in it. This extreme act has, understandably, caused a startling
number of injuries and withdrawals from ‘The Championships.’ At current
count there have been twelve retirements through injury (though not all
of them can be attributed to the grass mania which is sweeping the
tournament) and one player is currently in the midst of a medical
timeout, (he’s up and about now. I bet you weren’t expecting a live
tennis blog when you came were you?)
Mystery not-injured-anymore player has just gone 2-1 up in the first set on serve.
It
is becoming pretty clear now that this is my year, I have never had a
better chance to win Wimbledon than this year. As long as I don’t get
struck down by the mysterious grass malady, I think I could go far.
I’m
joking of course, I’ll have a much better chance next year when they
turn the whole complex into one big soft play to avoid injuries, and
decree that the only competition that will be played is mixed doubles
where one of the competitors must be 3 years old or younger. I’d take
me and my daughter against any of them in a game which took place in the
revamped Centre Court, otherwise known as the biggest indoor ball pool
in the world. Remember when you see the announcements in the press that
you heard it here first. It really is a fool-proof idea which has the
added benefit of giving at least some of the players an excuse for
squealing and whining like toddlers.
Uninjured player now at 1 set all and is 3-2, on serve, in the third set, he is looking very sprightly as well
Anyway,
back to grass. You see I had a slight run-in with the grass in my own
garden just this week, and when I say a run-in with the grass what I
mean is a run-in with my lawn-mower. And when I say run-in with my
lawn-mower what I really mean is that I ran over the wire powering my
lawn-mower which meant that having mowed a neat little patch, and then a
running track down one edge, progress was halted for quite a while as I
attempted to patch up my mess. This was a relatively simple job for
one of my undoubted DIY ability. All I had to do was get a terminal
block and connect the wires up in it and Bob would, in fact, be your
Uncle. This was accomplished with little hassle and I was soon on my
way mowing like a champion. Until there was a massive bang, followed by
another explosion, at which point the lawn-mower, understandably I’m
sure you’ll agree, decided that discretion was the better part of valour
and refused to play its, fairly crucial, part in the mowing of the
lawn.
Having
established, through the medium of sparks flying everywhere, that the
green wire and the blue wire shouldn’t be able to come into contact
(although I would like to offer, in my defence, the mitigation that I am
colour blind. I realise that this is not much mitigation as they are
the only two wires in there, but I feel something needs to be said in my
defence) I then spent the better part of half an hour trying to strip
the wires back enough so that they would fit into the terminal block,
but not so much that they would be dangling out and therefore at risk of
causing my entire garden to go up in flames. I’m afraid to tell you
that my natural talent and flair for all things practical failed me at
this crucial juncture and even though I thought I had managed to get the
wires just right I still couldn’t make the lawn-mower do any actual
mowing, instead it just stood in the middle of the patch it had just
mowed sulking and muttering something under its breath about health and
safety.
It
eventually dawned on me that perhaps, amidst all the pyrotechnics, a
fuse may have possibly blown. Unfortunately, the time now being
somewhere in the region of getting up and going to work time, such a
thing was unobtainable and thus the adventure with the lawn-mower came
to a rather premature end.
 |
| The Garden in better days. |
I
have decided though that this may, in fact, serve a greater purpose.
All we need to do is to get the players at Wimbledon to pop up here for
the weekend and spend some time in my garden. There’s so much grass
here they’d be cured of their grass infatuation in minutes.
Final update on unidentified, totally fine man: 8-9 down in the final set, play has been suspended due to slight sog.
