Court appearance...

For a game of badminton with M. Neither of us knows the rules and we were surrounded by courts containing semi-pro players, hyperactive schoolkids giving a running ticker of a scoreline and, thank whichever deity you worship, a couple of fat blokes (who still appeared to know the rules). So, we just knocked it back and forth for much of the hour-long session, happy to be gentle and get a long rally going cos at least that way it made it look as if we had at least some semblance of athletic ability. I had bought a fancy knee brace for the game, as one of my knees crunches like a peppercorn after even the slightest movement. But I couldn't locate my seldom worn tracksuit bottoms and didn't want to wear the brace with a pair of shorts, thinking that it gave me an air of hard core sportsman at odds with my inability to track the movement of a shuttlecock. So, sans the brace, I darted about the court, not knowing what I was doing, occasionally hitting the shuttlecock back to M, who commanded the centre of her side of the court and, thus, didn't have to be quite so headless chicken as her opponent. It was fun, in a bitter, twisted, I hate the people you see in leisure centres kind of way. We had a coffee in the restaurant when we'd vacated the court. There was a meeting of Weightwatchers going on next door, fittingly in the direct flight path of heavy chip oil fumes, which must have made those being applauded for losing 1lb feel a bit peckish.