Deafness and volleyball

Deafinitely Girly has been ill.

*sniff

Sore throat, cold, shivering, no appetite ILL!

Indeed, a packet of jam tarts has stayed unopened on my kitchen side this last week because I simply couldn't face eating them. And it's the truth that if I resist a jam tart, something is up,

But, thanks to a diet of Lemsip and Strepsils – and little else I might add – I am on the mend, and able to reflect on the quite brilliant weekend I had in Pompey with Tigger, Uni Housemate, SouperLouper and the gang.

Now a yearly event, we attended Broadlands outdoor Prom. There, we flag waved, cheered, drank champagne – or lemonade in my case as I volunteered to drive – and had a thoroughly marvelous time.

Then, on Sunday we went down to the seafront where there was a VW Festival. It was quite a spectacle, with camper vans of every shape and size, Beetles in the most stunning condition and more vintage picnic hampers than you could ever possibly need.

It got me dreaming of owning my own pink camper van. Split screen, pastel leather interior and a sign down the sign declaring DG's Campervan Cupcake Cafe.

In fact it was such a good dream that I fell asleep beside the sea while planning it all and burnt to a crisp.

After this, we wandered homeward and stumbled across a beach volleyball area, with some rather buff looking guys having a game. Their coach allowed us to borrow a ball and we set about our first ever attempt at beach volleyball. This largely consisted of whacking the ball onto the court of the buff guys, apologising and then doing it again two seconds later.

Eventually the coach took pity on us and gave us an impromptu coaching session. He explained the rules, showed us how to serve and gave us tips on how to keep the ball in the air. But naturally, being deaf, I didn’t follow any of this – instead I had flashbacks to my years on the hockey team, where, unable to hear the whistle or coach’s instructions, I regularly ran when I shouldn’t, scored when the game had stopped and generally made a complete idiot of myself.

So on Sunday, I just nodded and smiled and pretended I had a clue what was going on. When I was handed the ball, I served. When the ball looked like it might be going to be out, I didn’t touch it, and when we swapped sides, I followed my team. And actually this worked out quite well.

You see, after a spot of playing, rotating and serving, I was handed the ball to serve with. I did this and it was in – not only was it in but the other team failed to hit it back.

And I won the game!

The blonde, deaf girl without a clue what was going on won the game! Top Man, Uni Housemate and SouperLouper celebrated this by bear hugging me and I celebrated with the realisation that you don’t always necessarily have to know what’s going on to succeed in life.

And from now on, I’ve decided that’s going to be my mantra. I will succeed even though I don’t have a merry clue what I am doing half the time.

I will succeed.