The Monday Muse. One Day.

One Day.

I can’t remember exactly when I first started saying “one day”. I know I was very young. And I know I said it a lot. I also know that I say it as much now as I ever did then.

I am the dreamer of the family with her head in the clouds. I’ve grown accustomed to that face some people pull when I mention my plans for “one day”. Back then I made my aunt buy me an extra large sketchbook so I could map out the plans for my future abode. These days I lose minutes to the dark side that is daydreams and living in reverie.

Lucky for me while chasing my one-days I’ve found a partner in crime. Amidst seven years of citing one-days to each other, we almost didn’t realise when we were in the middle of a one-day moment last week.

Last Wednesday was a lucky day. The boy and I attended Wimbledon for the first time (the ultimate tennis event for those of you who aren’t into watching two people smash a ball around a court).

We sat munching our lunch and hiding from the rain in the corridors beneath Court 1, lamenting for the day we would be relishing in VIP treatment and swapping the overpriced ham sandwiches for the three course lunch whipped up by Michel Roux just a few doors down at The Gatsby Club.

As the usual two little words tumbled off my tongue I had an epiphany. I might “one day” be sitting pretty beside the privileged of Wimbledon, but I was also sat slap-bang right in the middle of a one-day moment right now, a moment I had dreamed of since I first found myself roaring at the TV screen alongside a nation of Tim Henman supporters in the 90s.

That said, I shall forever be a dreamer.

Without dreams, I wouldn’t have found myself back at Wimbledon again yesterday within touching distance of the almighty Roger Federer. In that front row seat the silence was palpable, the sounds were magnified and for that moment in time, the grass was a green as it was ever going to get.

I’ll always chase the “one days”, but thanks to this week, I will also remember to stop and smell the rosy aroma of those that are happening right now.

 

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The Hemingway Day. Hide.

 

Having spent the past hour dithering between Wimbledon watching, work and this blog post, I am struggling to find more words than the six below. Welcome to The Hemingway Day…

Hide.

The wind disguised his skulking inside.

 

Thanks to The Daily Post for the photo prompt this week, here are some other photos of doors.

Day 104.

From two heroes on court to several champions on screen…. today is a day of golden watching that will most definitely style the eyes a tad square. #100happydays #day104

New Balls Please.

Laura turns critic for the night at the Oxford Fringe’s new sketch show from Mullins & Gladwin…

There is something deliciously awkward about an expectant audience awaiting a comedy show. But there is something even more appetising about an expectant audience perched on the chairs of a Baptist church, the ones where the bible sits tucked behind the derrière of every spectator, just willing you to read it whilst you are waiting.

So it was amidst my education on the likes of Deuteronomy and Exodus that I was given my first taste of tonight’s comedic pair. It came courtesy of the kind of retro tune that wouldn’t have stood out of place on an 80s Saturday night sports show. The music teetered for a few moments longer than was natural, those extended seconds that comedians have revelled in since the likes of The Office and Family Guy discovered that audiences do like to be pushed past the extreme point of unease. I could only laugh… first serve to Mullins and Gladwin.

Behind their simple staging, the duo was kitted with a dress up box that even Mr Benn would have crossed mountains to claim, and thus we were treated to a compilation of colourful characters. There was the shop owner that had an insalubrious affection for the word ‘balls’, and the golf coach whose career goals were entrenched more in the West End than on the putting green. There were carefully tailored parodies of characters that even those who never even entertain the idea of sports-watching could recognise, such as the gum gnawing, talks-out-the-side-of-his-mouth, unresponsive football manager. Some sketches played with our sense of the familiar and the unexpected; a pair of boxers gearing up for a tumultuous game of tiddlywinks, and the snooker player who really is listening to THAT commentary.

It was with a shrewd wit that the duo took on the England squad’s notorious affection for the National Anthem, treating us to a dance that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Sadler’s Wells… here we had two performances for the price of one.

Mullins certainly tickled some funny bones with his love affair with a cardboard cut out of Jessica Ennis – if only he knew she was having another man’s baby – whilst Gladwin delighted with his uncanny impersonation of Chris Tarrant; it was all in the twitching eyes…

Laughter is without doubt the best medicine, and there is certainly no scientific formula as to its creation, but you might just be able to self medicate if you catch these two in action.

Catch Mullins and Gladwin in Oxford at the end of July for the Oxford Archway

www.archwayfoundation.org.uk