January: At A Glance…

In the blink of an eye, January had come and gone. In a nutshell, the month that was had been unsuspecting, though far from the foreboding kind.

Just as echoes of Christmas and New Year celebrations fizzled out and I was gearing myself up to once again embrace the daily routine, whispers of a Mixed Tournament held by the padel club my husband and I have become regulars of grew louder and stronger.

Allow me to digress to give context to the story.

We first encountered a padel club whilst strolling through an upper-class neighbourhood not too far from where we are currently living. Amused by the picture of funny-looking rackets but remaining discouraged by the name (thinking that the word padel, similar to paddle, meant it involved rowing boats), we continued walking past and never thought about said sport ever again.

Until one night in early October last year when my husband stumbled upon a snippet of people playing padel on YouTube and discovered it was a racket sport similar to tennis (in which both my husband and I had played recreationally in the past) and squash (a sport my husband had excelled in when he was young). Further discovering that there was a padel court within walking distance from our place, we decided to check it out, trial a game… and have never. looked. back. since!

Now… those who knew me well would attest that I had never been sports-inclined, nor ever been invested enough to spend any considerable time or energy to excel in one. Though I have quickly become addicted to this particular sport, having only been playing for three short months, I was of the firm opinion that I was nowhere near ready to join a tournament, even at the lowest level.

My husband, however, tried his darndest to convince me otherwise. Swayed by his most prominent argument of gaining a lot of unforgettable experiences, I signed up for my first-ever sports’ tournament!

Stay tuned for the next instalment where I will share some highlights.