As those who read the last 4 or is it 5 yrs of posts here may gather I am a victualler of the ordinary, batty and odd moment. I cherish or trap it in life and in fiction. I enjoy it in a glimpse or happening and probably imagine it when it’s not actually happening.  I’m also endeared to what comes before and after it. Thus the other night there was a great moment or two before the unfortunate plunge to back banjaxing with the backflip.

At first the coach asked me to demonstrate how to throw it over this large roly poly cheese thing to the other mainly men who haven’t yet learnt it. He was full of the bravura over this which was rather catching and I said as I watched these various blokes going back and side and crash over the foam this is a rare moment where I am stronger than them. It won’t last because they, of course, when taught, will master the move. But then, at that moment, I was the strongest.

He and I then took the backflip to the sprung tumbling run and did them in twos. Then he said ok take a break. Breaks are not a major occurrence in my vocabulary, so I took the solo move over to the industrial trampoline where I knew I could continue it unaided.

I threw a few and stood off. A young man who began training at the same time as me before xmas asked “What goes through your head as you throw that move” so I explained that if anything goes through my head it is to not let thinking interfere to just rely on the body and be aggressive and determined. If I contemplate it, I will surely screw it up, because rationale interferes. I told him not to be in a hurry to achieve it, it would come and to  work on his strength and how mighty he was doing. And he is really doing mighty this fella, since it is hard to enter a place and watch people doing much more advanced moves than you’re able to and to take the time to learn the basics properly.

Over empowered by compliments and inquiry and I returned to the trampoline threw one good one, collected a compliment and an instruction and then the next one I threw, screwed it up mightily and have spent the past 72 hrs apologizing to every torn muscle in my back. Clearly it pays to take a break!

Today in sharply different circumstances (a funeral forum) I saw a man refuse to give up his moment. He would not hand back the microphone and he dug in there and delivered what he’d come to say (he was v frustrated by the system and the govt and regulations around burial it sounded like).  God bless him, I admired him. Earlier we’d been chatting about the acoustics in the room, which were difficult and he was having a hard time hearing. He had told me lightly …. “When you get older, you don’t give up, you give it to them.” He read what he’d determined he wanted to say aloud from the back of a rectangular aquatic blue diary (day planner). It was great. He was great. And since he was on his two feet rather than a sprung unpredictable piece of fabric trying to twist upside down, well the outcome was more of a ruction than a rupture.