As I’ve said before in these retirement blogs, control what you can in your retirement life and smile philosophically about what you can’t. Above all do not, repeat not, willfully bring into your retirement life, experiences you can’t control, unless of course you enjoy a retirement that’s out of control. Some might call it living life on the edge, riding the wild water rapids or some such metaphor. Perhaps it’s living an exciting retirement by some people’s definition. Others might call it causing oneself unnecessary pain. You pay your money.
It seems to me that there’s plenty we can’t control when you get to a certain age, namely your health, perhaps your finances, even your general well-being, without introducing more uncertainty. And yet dear reader, this is precisely what I do. Any sane person who puts his or her pleasure in life in the hands or feet of men and women playing, what we laughingly call, sport, is an idiot. Well dear reader say hello to just such an idiot.
I’m deliberately writing this before my affection for rugby is tested in this year’s Six Nations. Although by the time this is posted I will know for sure. England kick off playing Ireland in Dublin. I do have Irish connections but when they play England there is no question where my loyalties lie. And I think we’re going to get beaten*. No amount of not watching the game or sticking my fingers in my ears and chanting, can’t hear you, affects the result. Following the game on my phone when I could be watching it on TV, doesn’t help either. I’ve been known to follow the game until say the last 10 minutes and then wonder if I turn it on will it affect the result? Yes, bonkers I know, but there it is.
Cricket now there’s a sport that’s caused me a fair amount of pain over the years. Even in this era when we’re better than we used to be England are still capable of inflicting the most grievous emotional damage on their supporters. Witness the last result against the West Indies. A team that have been regarded as pretty hopeless in recent years (beaten by Bangladesh in their last game) yet managed to beat us by an enormous margin. And, as I bring this up to date, it may well be a second defeat.
Cricket watchers are notorious as a whole (i.e. it’s not just me who’s mad, hence the name for their supporters – The Barmy Army), for believing that what they do at home will affect the result thousands (nearly) of miles away. Turning on or off the TV will cause a wicket to fall. Leaving the room when things are going well will bring about some disaster or other. I can’t begin to think about how many hours of my life (worse now I have retirement time on my hands) I have wasted looking at my phone through one eye believing I can influence the result of a game. Even with one eye closed it is sometimes impossible to make good things happen.
If I’m lucky, and my view is that, while I might generally think of myself as lucky, this doesn’t apply to sport, when one sport causes me pain and misery, another one will provide solace. True there have been weekends when all three – rugby, cricket and football – of my chosen sports, have caused me said pain and misery, there have been (much rarer) occasions when all three have given pleasure. It’s the sheer out-of-controlledness that is so bothersome.
But this last weekend but one, when England cricket was so embarrassing, the solace was provided by football. This in the form of my local team, Nottingham Forest (be careful how you write that) the one I have supported, through mostly thin with just a little thick, for the last 55 years. So yes, normally they are the prime source of my sporting pain but last weekend was different and then some. I’ll explain even if you’re not interested I’ll explain anyway.
My sister-in-law has a relatively new ‘partner’. Usually this would be of little interest although the last partner was interesting when he decided, at about the time they split up, that he was going to give away his worldly wealth because he’d read this book that said this was the way to become fabulously rich. Rather selfishly she didn’t keep in touch so the whole family, who were fascinated by this strategy, were deprived of the pleasure, or otherwise, of knowing if this rather bold strategy was the one we’d all been looking for. Most of us thought he was bonkers. So I suppose in this context my bonkers-ness around sport, isn’t quite so bonkers.
Anyway, as I was saying before I got distracted, her current amour is a season ticket holder at Forest, and, get this, he has a spare ticket that he offers to appropriate people for not much money. The seat in which I sat last Saturday is, without question, the best seat I’ve sat in (apart from the safety bar which interferes with the view somewhat I had to move my head up and down when they were attacking one end, but then nothing’s perfect is it) in the 50 plus years I’ve been going to the ground. And here’s the point dear reader, they won, 3 – 1 no less.
And this was only part of what made for the perfect afternoon, the type that you have no control over. I travelled into Nottingham on the bus, just like I used to all those years ago. Talk about back to my roots, blimey. Loving the accents of my fellow travellers who were also heading to the game. I hate the East Midland’s accent, happy to leave it behind but wallowed in the conversation of the two chaps behind me. Even to the point of making a note on my phone of some of the pronunciations, now unfortunately lost but some of my favourites – thorteen (thirteen), hom (home), waater (water), bothday (birthday) and my most favourite ‘a wu drenched, twatting rain’ (I was made very wet by the heavy rain). Ah yes, the joys of the English (sort of) language. What more could a person ask from a quite randomly experienced afternoon of sport?
I’ll stop now having, it seems, completely destroyed my original supposition that a retired person should leave as little to chance as is humanly possible. Always try and keep your retirement under control, if at all possible, and, above all, don’t let sport ruin your well-being. This retirement blog has so much in the way of great free advice it’s quite frightening.
*I didn’t watch the game and we won. I had to sacrifice football and cricket results to get this one. Don’t worry if you don’t understand what that means, it’s quite obscure.