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Big Brother’s Tennis Mother’s Big Udders
Tennis Club 2 July 2006
We are simmering in a heat haze. Mrs Monk and I, got ourselves to the tennis club at 8 AM in order to avoid the worst of the sun. We sent the yellow balls back and forth and Mrs Monk has now learnt not to swipe at the balls recklessly, which had been her normal method of play. Even so, she did manage to lose just two balls by dispensing them into the next county, and dispatched one more ball into the adjacent swimming pool
The swimming pool was occupied by just three swimmers one of whom returned the wet ball and within 5 minutes, that ball had dried out in the sun,
In due course, Mrs Monk deserted me to join the early morning bathers. I practised my serves for fifteen minutes until 9 AM when the temperature had risen to 30 degrees scorchio. As I made a retreat, a gathering crowd of bathers, and tennis bags arrived to take my place. I watched them make hurried territorial claims for picnic tables on the terrace, and colonise sun loungers around the pool.
I supped an orange juice and watched a young girl, about 3 ft high, play tennis with her father. She seemed to have some talent and she could swing a two handed back hand with style and pace. Her less talented father served balls to her and she sent them back with interest, time after time. But her 2 ft high sister was in the adjacent pool and that's where she wanted to be. She had her head down and after half an hour she was complaining about being hot. Her father told her that if she carried on like that, he would take her straight home. She went on with her drills and then her mother debated with the father about what the kid was doing wrong. The kids head was hung even lower, and the pool was filling up. I glanced at the demanding mother who had laid out a towel on each of six individual sun loungers.
The kid’s two foot high sister, then started to play tennis with the same father, who went through the same drills.
Having just watched Andy Murray beat Roddick on TV and noticing the aggressive celebration of his mother, we were somewhat down on pushy tennis mums. Conversely we applauded the restraint of Tim Henman’s mother, but then, poor plucky Tim went out in the second round, albeit to Federer, who will surely be Champion again in a few days time.
And then Mrs Monk arrived. I told her about the pushy parents and she told me about the “plastics”; they are girls with plastic implants,, and plastic minds that are around the pool to be seen, but not to swim. Someone has coined this term “plastics” on Big Brother, which this year features much silicone enhancement. Mrs Monk pretends to not watch what she calls Big Udder, but she does seem to know all about it... Shoestring Chronicle
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