I forgot to mention in my previous summer tour round up post that Basingstoke broke my previous day record of 49 at 52 on a Friday. 27 Curd the Lion and 25 Flight of Birds. I had to go back to the car park twice after selling out of each of their existing stock.
Sold 1,103 total. Curd 488. FoB 615. Av. 34.5 per day. (Curd 15.25. FoB 19.22) Both maxed at 27 in a day. Only sold under 30 books twice.
Downside? My missing spinal disc grated harshly heaving tents around (I camped and cooked all my own meals throughout, succumbing to a restaurant only once) and by the end of the tour of five and a half weeks standing, my plantar fasciitis (torn tendon sheath under heel) underwent an excruciating renascence.
NB. Warning to all sporty types – never, never, play without doing those achilles stretches first – I tore mine (see above) over three days and five matches of real tennis in winning my first ever club (doubles) championship.
My name is now depicted in letters of gold on the great boards at Petworth House Real Tennis Court for my children and grandchildren to see, should they ever dream of venturing into that church-like enclosure.
But the cost of that reckless enthusiasm for sporting achievement?
I count, at sixty, the following price: a hole in my skull, one by half-inch (rock climbing at 13 without a helmet – consequence: no cricket or high-diving); torn meniscus cartilage in my right knee, operated on four times (Irish jigging and then squash – consequence: transfer from squash to real tennis and racketball); basal spinal disc loss (A totally unsporting bacterial infection that nearly killed me and ‘ate’ the disc – consequence: no leaping and back-stretching at badminton); plantar fasciitis under right heel (Real tennis – consequence: there’s only swimming and cycling left, really).
Sunday, 9 October 2011
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