Tram-Line Talk

Four of us get together every Sunday morning for three sets of tennis and, just as important, if not more important is the regular sanity maintenance session which follows the game. Forget any images of frilly broekies, pompom socks and tea and cake. We have replaced this with g-strings, tank tops and the tea has been replaced with champagne.

The self-titled Tennis Tarts are made up of me and my sister Theresa, fondly known as the Williams Sisters. This is no reflection on the standard of our tennis, but rather on our competitiveness. We have been known to enquire, on hearing that Patty goes for a regular morning jog, whether she won or not. We are also more inclined to choose beer drinking and rugby watching over an all expenses paid afternoon spent at a luxury spa and consider anyone who might not put watching the Springboks thump the All Blacks as priority, with great suspicion.

Then there is Patty, who on the other hand, has been known to fly all the way to Paris for a Fois gras and Moet on the day of the rugby world cup final. She openly admits to not letting tap water pass her lips and will rather die of heat stroke than swim in a public swimming pool. We humour these little idiosyncracies of hers however, because she has a marvellously consistent serve and she brings the champagne, always chilled.

What makes this group work are the diverse characters thrown into a fenced court. Enter Rose, who is convinced that she was a gypsy in her former life, so she dresses the part. Her tennis attire consists of lots of extremely colourful flowing garments of indeterminate function with socks to match and Nike tackies. We drew the line at all the tinkling bells though, because they become very distracting when Rose is serving a 100 mph fence-shredding tennis ball right at you. She also believes in meditation and mediation as a personal development tool, as opposed to me, who finds that a well aimed round house kick at anyone who is interfering with my equilibrium (usually my husband), is far more therapeutic and satisfying. Its much quicker too.

And so The Tennis Tarts and my Sunday pocket of social sanity was born .......