Soaring Worldwide’s business development manager Stewart Dyer on the obstacles of revisiting a former hobby.
So I decided to take up tennis again.
It’s my incredibly belated new year’s resolution to finally get fit, although it has taken me a while to actually accept that I need to do something. Also, it was either that or go running, so I thought tennis might be the easier solution. My first proper ‘job’ was actually as a tennis coach and although I haven’t picked up a tennis racquet for close to 10 years, I’m hoping it is largely the same principle as riding a bike. Hope being the operative word. Plus I hate running.
So I organise a match for this Saturday against an old friend who is equally as rusty, and I luckily benefit from the fact that there are a couple of outdoor courts a short walk from where I live. The immediate flaw to my plan, however, is evident as I gaze out of my office window watching the snow gently fall as it always does in…wait…it’s March!?!?
Determined to not let the English weather spoil my weekend, I decide to book an indoor court. Half an hour later and I’m wondering if I just go for plan B and we go for a pint in a warm pub. Why is it so difficult to book an indoor court in England? Surely with the atrocious weather we have to ritually suffer each year, there should be an abundance of indoor facilities to cope with the fact that only a handful of days in this country avoids the likelihood that it will be raining / snowing / blowing a gale force wind. It seems ridiculous that so few clubs in the Gloucestershire region actually have the facilities to compensate for weather that, frankly, we should all be used to by now.
For a brief moment though, I did think my luck had turned as I found an indoor tennis club a few miles from my house. I asked if I could book for 3 hours, might as well make the most of my new-found healthy mentality. The cost? £63. That’s right, £21 per hour to book the only indoor court for miles. Mmm…time to dig out the credit card. Wait, never mind. Apparently there is a tournament on and they are fully booked.
Pub it is.
Комментарии