Tenez Vous

It is amazing that this game was invented by monks and French ones at that. At school I much preferred table tennis but this might have been down to sheer laziness. Either that or incompetence. I once was hit in the head with a ball, even holding a racket in front of my head. I got my own back though by smacking the ball into my teacher’s head and then faking innocence. Lovely.

I have recently got back into the game though at David Lloyds where we nearly lost all our tennis balls in an hour of manic Tenez Vous. I enjoyed serving immensely for I had always thought myself incapable but managed a couple of beauties. The weather was great and I sweated very productively. If I had played it in Singapore, where I had tried once (and turned into a beetroot according to my mum) sweating would not have helped and I would have been forced into an ice bath.

My biggest problem is hitting the ball too hard. It’s more fun that way but it often goes out of the other end. To think that I used to shirk playing tennis at school, when hitting stuff is so therapeutic. More tennis for me please.