I always dreaded my P.E. report at school. It was far from my strongest subject. Apart from swimming, the only other sport I have enjoyed taking part in is tennis. I joined a tennis club and enjoyed spending my weekends rallying with my sister. I can get a bit competitive. I am not John McEnroe, but I do like the ball to be in! To be honest my husband is extremely lucky I accepted his marriage proposal after he beat me at a game on the day he proposed! I still think that if I was him, missing the odd shot to ensure a "yes" later in the evening would have been a wise idea.

So now Wimbeldon is upon us, I decided it was time to get the boys interested in tennis. I headed to Sainsbury's and stocked up on Coke and snacks. Middle man loves strawberries so that was a sure fire way to get him to sit still for 10 minutes. I had a look at the Coke calculator before I left, which may have swayed my choice for Diet Coke.

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Big man was excited that I got a Coke bottle with his name on. Although he did show some disappointment that it wasn't his full name, and that the popcorn in my shopping bag didn't even have his initials on. You just can't please some people!



So what happened when we sat down to watch the tennis?

I realised that what I thought was a very simple sport, is actually very difficult to explain. "You have to serve into the opposite small box, then just keep the ball in the court but not in those side bits. Unless it is a doubles match and then it can go in there" Scoring is confusing for a 5 year old too. "If they haven't scored we say love, and 40 all is deuce.Then it goes to advantage points but might go back to deuce if they lose the point." I think it went over big man's head. He got the idea of hitting the ball over a net and settled with that.


So what do you do after watching Wimbledon on the TV? In our house you have a game of swingball. I was actually quite impressed that big man could hit the ball and mainly backhand.


I am not quite sure how this happened, but before big man knew it, Mummy and Daddy had taken over his game of swingball and made him chief photographer. I had years of pent up frustration. I needed to win this game. Did my husband miss a shot to make me feel better?


Of course not, he thrashed me 3 games to 1. I am therefore planning on spending the Summer holidays playing swingball with big man so that I can up my game and beat my husband. And who knows all this practice could mean that big man is the next Andy Murray. This is of course if I ever manage to explain the rules of tennis well enough to him.