Last night was a night out! My daughters school has an awards night for all the trophies that the various teams seem to get from time to time. My daughter plays basketball and her team won an area competition.

I am an anxious hermit at the best of times but the thought of an evening, a whole evening, devoted to trophies and a disco was close to purgatory! I don't know a whole lot of people, at all, let alone at my kids school.

Still it was my daughters day. She had a trophy to collect. So I signed up.

We ended up crashing the ceremony as no one had explained that parking at the venue was extremely limited. We finally parked down by the river and endured a sharp uphill hike to the hall. Once again I discovered just how unfit I had become this year. As I eased my sweaty lard of a body into the auditorium I resolved yet again to do something about it.

As the ceremony continued I paused for thought. The school was making a big deal of this. Success should always be recognised. But not all of the greatest achievements are by those who win the gongs. This is a pet cause of mine that I find difficult to explain so I won't start here. I wondered if the school pays such attention to it's other achievers.


It was one of the things that upset my sister during her school years that, as an achiever in languages she didn't ever get the same recognition as the sporting greats. Not just from her contemporaries but from the teaching side also. Hey ho!

With the gong giving over we were allowed to trough on the buffet. My daughter made a bee line for her friends. I have met some of her friends Mums a few times and my worst fears about hanging around waiting for the evening to end were not realised. I think I need to work on my chat up technique. I really must stop using my pig husbandry stories.

It just seems to crop up. I wonder if it some sort of Freudian technique to turn the conversation to sex? If it is the conversation is not subtle. Ask me about it sometime.

The night was a heap more fun than I thought possible. Pig farming aside. However the next morning we all slept in accidentally. I didn't dance, I didn't drink, so why was I driving to work feeling like i had spent the night practising yard of ale drinking?