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My daughter's sports day today and one parent from each family could attend as long as they'd done a negative lateral flow test. Hopefully next year things will be back to normal. It was a sunny morning and we sat on the grass bank with our masks on and watched our kids running around, though half the time they were too far away to see properly. It took me a couple of minutes to identify my own child amongst the throng. They were all wearing uniform and hats which made it trickier.
It was charmingly uncompetitive, though Phoebe was a whizz at the egg and spoon race and ran when pretty much everyone else gingerly walked. It reminded me of an egg and spoon race I'd been a part of at Cheddar Primary in 1976, though the memory was only fleeting. I think I'd been winning (which was the point of sports day in the 70s when you got rosettes for coming first) but then got too cocky and the egg fell off the spoon. It's not the greatest of stories, but it's interesting that my brain has elected to semi-store that memory when it's let so many others go.
There was then a race round a lap of the running track. Phoebe was doing OK, but then fell on her already injured knee and hobbled round the last 20 metres, crying. She is 28 years old and one of the teachers, so it was embarrassing.
That reminded me of my greatest sporting achievement when I'd been at primary school in Loughborough (so probably in 1975) when we'd been at the park doing sports day and there had been a race to the tree and back. We set off but I was bundled to the floor as the class clumped together. My brain (almost certainly incorrectly) remembers everyone else disappearing into the distance, whilst a teacher encouraged me to get to my feet and get back into the race. Which I did and then angry at my humiliation ran as fast as I could, caught up with the pack by the time we'd got to the tree and then pushing onwards and getting back to the start in first place. Most of this certainly happened, though I am not certain I won. I was definitely in the top 3 though as I then progressed to the next round of the race, against bigger kids, where I wasn't pushed over, but comfortably came in last (or near enough). My athletics career was over, but man I had enjoyed that time at the top.
My daughter didn't get up and run on to victory, but she still got a medal anyway because she's a fucking snowflake.
I wonder if she'll remember this day and if her brain will rewrite it so she becomes a hero. Which she was to me, especially in the egg and spoon race. When she's representing the UK in the egg and spoon at the Olympics I will certainly look back on this day.
