Time-Out Tarts

We have always had some kind of misguided blind belief that it never rains on our tennis court. Living in the wet, windy winter-rainfall region of the Western Cape, that faith was a bit like my mother driving into the only tree within a 10 km radius in the middle of the Namibian Desert, yet she managed it. We have since had a reality check. It has been raining on our court every Sunday for more than five weeks. No tennis, and even worse, no champagne.

Something had to be done and since that fantastic retractable roof that they have over Wimbledon centre court is a little out of the Club budget, we decided to avail ourselves of the Club’s other indoor facilities. We decided to try out our tennis skills on the table tennis table in the clubhouse.

The transition was not as easy as we thought, especially since we hadn’t left any of our competitive killer instincts back out in the rain. It soon became apparent that we weren’t used to any kind of confinement when Theresa leapt onto the Foozball table table to retrieve a cross court smash from Meg. The kids playing Foozball at the time didn’t seem to appreciate having their plastic goalie trampled underfoot and then when I inadvertently scored a goal with our errant pingpong ball, they looked positively mutinous. My enthusiastic attempts to high five them were met with a lot of muttering and dirty looks as they rearranged and realigned their plastic soccer players.

According to Table Tennis rules, it is also unacceptable to jump up and swing wildly from the vertical blinds in attempting to return Theresa’s blistering serve. I think she may have been secretly training with the Korean Olympic team. This however didn’t seem to impress the darts players, in fact I think they were a little put off their aim because one dart missed the dartboard completely, narrowly missing my butt as I swung down from the pelmet!

Table Tennis turned out to be short-lived after Theresa, diving across the neighbouring pool table, mistook the white snooker ball for our pingpong ball and sunk it in the left hand corner pocket with her bat. The pool players were a little more threatening than the Foozball kids, I think they might have had money on the game, so we decided to pack it in and drink champagne instead.

They also have yoga classes at the Club, and since the table tennis table had mysteriously disappeared, purportedly for repairs, we decided to try out the yoga class the following week. That was even more short-lived than the table tennis. Our “Yogi” didn’t think it was funny when I tried the Three-legged Dog Balance using the champagne bottle as a support. When Theresa popped the champagne cork during the post-yoga rest period and disrupted everyone from their blissful meditative states, we were encouraged to seek out another diversion, preferably at another club. Far away, and at least until the sun comes out and dries up our tennis court.

Tram-Line Talk: Temporary Tart

One dark and gloomy Sunday morning we arrived at tennis with heavy hearts. The sun was shining in a brilliant blue cloudless sky, perfect conditions for tennis, but the Springboks had just been knocked out of the Rugby World Cup by the bloody Aussies and their side-kick, Bryce Lawrence. Our mood was further dampened by a last minute cancellation. Being too late to get a replacement, we had no option but to play American singles, which we don’t enjoy as much since none of us have figured out the rules* yet.

A few games into the first set, an unsuspecting father and his young daughter appeared, racquets in hand, only to find the court already occupied by us. Siezing the opportunity, we asked if they would like to make up a fourth. So along came Susie to join our game. Unfortunately Susie couldn’t hit a ball even if you bounced it gently straight onto her racquet. This resulted in our killer instincts being severely blunted, because as competitive as we are, none of us had the heart to hammer our usual searing killer shots at the poor girl.

Eventually after a few silly games Susie retired, obviously intimidated by our superior tennis. My son tells me that the Tarts are rather intimidating, but I think he was referring to the shrieking, screaming, howling and cursing that usually accompanies our game. So never to be thwarted, we invited Susie’s dad to take her place. He turned out to be a terrific tennis player and we ended up playing a really challenging couple of sets, our killer instincts once again sharpened to full capacity.

About halfway through the first set Susie wanted to go home and after some diversionary “nearly done’s” which she didn’t buy, she sat on the side-lines glowering at us. Halfway through the second set when things were getting really serious, dad’s cellphone rang. Susie’s mom wanting to know why their tennis was taking so long. She had obviously seen Susie play before. Three calls later Susie was heard saying, “No mom, I’m not playing tennis, dad is. He was supposed to play with me, but he’s been kidnapped by a bunch of voracious, tennis-playing man-hunting Tarts”. The cellphone calls became a lot more frequent after that.

Finally after a gruelling, hard fought three setter and much hand shaking and high-fiveing, dad set off for home at pace, answering the ringing phone on the run with Susie in tow muttering and throwing us scathing backward glares. We didn’t even have time to invite them for champagne. We would like to have bestowed him with an Honourary Tart Title, but for some strange reason he has never been seen at the Club again. Ever. 

* If anyone knows the rules for American Singles please post here. Would be much appreciated.