Pickleball-gate

It's Friday and it is blooming cold up here in the Mornings - showing just 7 degrees outside and our ice-box of a spare bedroom showed the heady heights of 9 degrees when I got up - that is cold by anyone's book and we have visitors coming tomorrow.  We have yet to solve the conundrum which is how to sensibly, effectively and economically heat the building that houses our bedrooms.  It seems daft to be heating a room we do not use but I am constantly worrying whether things in there feel damp or just cold.  That room, along with the toilet in the other building gets little to no sun so in the winter they are both freezing and then if they get a blast of warm air condensation forms and that is damp and damp is a constant problem with houses over here.  If the bedrooms were right next to the lounge then we wouldn't have the problem because when the woodburner is lit we could just open up the doors and/or windows and allow the warm air to flow through but we have the added problem of the conservatory in between.  This is either a hot house or cold.  John is contemplating adding a secondary layer to the roof by using Triplex sheets and trapping air between the sheets and the glass.  We shall investigate the costs of this in the New Year.  In the meantime our trusty space heaters are keeping the chill off (and using up any excess electricity we have generated over the past few months!)

Anyway as my sister has so rightly pointed out 7 degrees outside is positively balmy as Balsall Common where she lives shows temperatures hovering only just above freezing and outside the first signs of snow falling.

I told her she should get acclimatised to it now that she has been officially appointed as Santa's little helper and will be distributing Great Granny and Great Grandad's and Aunty Jill and Uncle John's gifts to our oh so cute youngest member of the family, Jack.  This year at just under three his Christmas is going to be absolutely magical and I cannot wait to see the photographs.  As his Great-Aunt I am bound to be biased but anyone that knows me knows I don't normally 'do' children but he managed to weave his magic on us all when he visited back in October.

We were playing pickleball today - John had decided not to try and do both that and badminton but may play badminton again next week.  Liselotte has gone to Denmark so Kyle came and made up the numbers this week.  Sadly it has not been a good week for the Club as the dynamics of the Thursday session apparently weren't ever going to work with Liz now no longer able to play on that day and two of the new players took umbrage when one was told they didn't have the necessary racquet skills to make it in the game.  I wasn't there when this happened so don't know exactly what was going on but suffice to say it was all a bit unpleasant and a shame as we have had several new players recently who have all fitted in and are enjoying their games.  Kyle is only a youngster so if we were an intimidating group to infiltrate you would think he would be one of the first to say so but he enjoys the banter and the game and has offered to fill the space we currently have on a Thursday until we can find another newbie.  There is nowt so queer as folk they say and they are absolutely right!

John asked me to try and capture the game on video.  It is difficult to get the right angle in the room to film it properly and it always amazes me how 'tippy tappy' it looks on film when in reality it is a fast paced game.  This particular clip shows one of Diana's superb passing shots which gets the better of John Wares who is, in my opinion, a really difficult player to beat.  Diana's game has come on in leaps and bounds but she and I struggle to beat the uber-competitive two Johns on a Friday afternoon - that is our goal and soon we will do it.