The content that follows is my own.
I previously published it in 2012, on a blog called "Throwing My Weights Around". Alas, I failed to renew the domain after a few years, but it seemed a shame not to have the content out there on the web, so I'm going to copy it all across into "The Wonderful Thing" so that people can read all about my shenanigans in the world of traditional sports. Enjoy! I did...
I have never been what you’d call a sporty type. I am not (and you know who you are, people!) one of those lean, focused types with muscles like a Victorian anatomy chart, who thinks a good evening’s entertainment involves putting on Lycra and running ten miles. I do not run. I don’t even jog unless being chased with a cattle prod. I do not swim laps – please, I’m not a goldfish – and my idea of a good evening’s entertainment is far more likely to involve me sitting in a pub listening to live music, or curled up at home with a good book, or a daughter or two and a DVD. PE at school was a sweaty hell of team sports, at which I was utterly hopeless, and occasional bright interludes such as the time I almost decapitated my teacher with a discus (yeah… sorry about that, Miss Moss). I joined a Kung Fu club at the age of 19, but had to give it up after about a year because it was just too embarrassing to continue. So, sporty? Not so much.
However… and here we reach the salient point of this blog…
I am now 47 years old, a widowed solo parent, and when I went on a two-day jolly up to Scotland last August with my best friend Robyn, we decided, on a whim, to go to the North Berwick Highland Games. It would be a fun day out – bagpipes, cute little girls dancing with swords, stalls, food, bagpipes, arena entertainments, and the prospect of seeing brawny men in kilts tossing the caber and suchlike mirth-making stuff. And bagpipes. ‘Cos everything’s funnier with bagpipes, right?
The arena entertainments on the day were fun, the massed bagpipe bands from all over the world were incredibly stirring and not at all ridiculous, the wee Highland dancers were indeed cute as well as skilled, and the weather was… well, let’s just say it was pretty typical of a British summer afternoon. It drizzled, then rained. Then it rained some more, only harder. We huddled shivering under umbrellas by the arena fence, along with hundreds and hundreds of other people, watching the Heavy Events. And you know what? It wasn’t the comedy I was half expecting. It was really, really impressive and very athletic (and did I mention that when the guys spin before putting the shot, throwing the weight for distance and so on, their kilts swish in a braw, manly way and display their muscular legs to great advantage? Well, I’m mentioning it now, ladies).
And, alongside the men in kilts, there were two women in kilts, doing a demonstration event. I was transfixed (and not just by the men) – it sounds idiotic, but somehow it had never crossed my mind that women would or even could participate in this kind of sport. It was a revelation. The rain pelted down, we had to fetch fleece blankets from the car in order to stop ourselves turning blue with cold, but there was no question of packing up and leaving. Robyn, at some point during the afternoon, turned to me and uttered the fateful words, “You could do that! Oh, please do that Sue, it’d be great, and I could fetch you drinks and be your cheerleader!”
By such casual knavery is the course of a life changed forever…
Yes, Robyn, I’m blaming this on you.
The following posts are an attempt to track my progress as I prepare for my first season as a novice thrower in the Heavy Events at a whole rack of Highland Games in the UK this summer, 2012. More details will appear here as I finalise the list.
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