I’ve just spent the best part of a week unable to walk up or down stairs.
Quadriceps that once functioned perfectly adequately for a woman of my years, have failed me.
Despite the general consensus of family and friends, I refuse to blame it on last week’s indoor netball game.
I may be the oldest member of the team (the oldest member in the comp, some have unkindly suggested), and I may have played only the one season since 1973, but by golly, I’m still up for it.
The sweet young things we played were barely half our age, but I only fell over the once; the scrape on my elbow hardly bled at all and my left knee didn’t turn green for days.
But old and cunning still has some advantages over young and beautiful.
Unlike the SYTs on the other team, we didn’t have any makeup to sweat off, we weren’t there to hook up, and we didn’t have the rest of our lives to win a game of netball; every mature netballer knows that every game could be her last.
I was feeling pretty good afterward, despite my fall. So good in fact, that the very next day I offered to stand in for a fellow indoor netballer at her group Pilates class.
Clearly she knew something I didn’t.
The instructor had biceps like ham hocks and little understanding of the special needs of the more mature indoor netballer.
An hour later I wobbled out on trembling legs, in such a state that a friend who has survived cancer asked if I needed a hand.
I’ve been keeping a low profile since. Walking the dog slowly, hoping to regain full use of my legs.
But today, I rose without groaning, felt an unaccustomed spring in my step, ran up the stairs, just to prove that I could, and turned on the computer to hear via the lovely Jim Roy that HENRY HOEY HOBSON had made the Victorian CBCA Clayton’s Shortlist for Younger Readers.
So chuffed was I that I did a little dance (just because I could). Happy too, that Jim’s latest novel ANONYMITY JONES made the list for Older Readers, along with fellow Woolshed Press author Nette Hilton for THE INNOCENTS.
If you’d like to see the Victorian Clayton’s judges’ hot tips on which books could be contenders for the REAL Children’s Book Council Shortlist to be announced on April 12, click here.
Meantime, I can die happy.
I’ve won an indoor netball game (I did mention we won, didn’t I? 29-20. Against those spritely young things) AND I’ve shared a (Clayton’s) shortlist with the likes of Michael Gerard Bauer and Glenda Millard.)
Oh yes, my week has definitely got better. 🙂