The last school sports

Yesterday I went to the South Hobart primary sports day for probably the last time. With Michael in Grade 6 this year, we are experiencing quite a few lasts. We started our involvement with the school in 2006, (almost matching the life of this blog), so it's quite an era coming to an end. Given the fluidity of people's work lives now, and I expect in the future, most kids will probably never have an 8-year stint anywhere again after primary school.

Michael is developing his thoughtful and responsible side. He shies away from the kind of leadership roles that naturally appeal to Marcus, but in his low-key way I can see he is enjoying being "top of the school".

At the sports I found him sitting in the back row of the grandstand, not on his own but just in his own space, behind some friends. Where Marcus revelled in leading, and encouraging, it is rare to hear Michael express enthusiasm for others efforts, and we are really trying hard to work on that with him. It comes very naturally to me to babble encouraging generalities while watching kids sport or playing my own, but it will have to be a learned skill for our youngest.

Of course it's nice to be encouraging, but beyond that it is good for you yourself, I believe. Even if it's claptrap and the people nearest me dearly wish I would shut up, I am certain that some kind of soup of positivity infuses and nurtures my brain while I am being Mr Encouragement.

Back to Michael and the sports. Grade 6 kids are chivvied into participating in practically everything. Once I was there too to join in the persuading, Michael had no hope of receding into the grandstand as he wished.

He had won his 100m race before I arrived - he usually runs in the "not that fast" heat and has won it comfortably now two years in a row. I also missed seeing his long jump, but I understand he came fourth.

I came in exactly at the start of his speciality, the sack race. He has been unbackable favourite for this for some years. It's a shame the monkey race was phased out, he was seriously a world title chance in that one. It was like Walter Lindrum all over again.

His race approach in the sack was "give it the kitchen sink", which probably cost him the win. He is simply the fastest, so if he'd just gone boing boing he would have won comfortably. Instead he took off in a frenzy and fell, injuring his arm and scraping his knee. He got up and then just burned up the track with the most incredible (bagged) closing speed anyone had ever seen. But too late, he hit the front mere inches after the finish line.

After some cajoling he went in the 200m. He is actually quite fast when he applies his mind and legs. He ran in lane 2, starting staggered behind all but one of the others. And he caught them all but one, coming with a terrific finish and just failing to pass Oliver who had spent nearly all his petrol.

Michael's egg and spoon race was not his best, but I was pleased to see that at last SHPS has invested in some Sensible Standard Spoons after some less-than-fair variability in past years.

As ever our family house Derwent was the winner at the end of the day. Join me now in one last rendition of DER WENT (clap clap clap) DER WENT (clap clap clap).

School sports 2012

The boys did very well in the school sports on Wednesday. A quick rundown - Michael won 3 blue ribbons and Marcus 5, with a few other placings each. They won their respective sack races, and Michael also dominated the egg-and-spoon. (There were good spoons and bad spoons and he seemed to have a particularly good one). His bounding technique in the sack race was effective yet hilarious. After the finish he grandstanded a bit by continuing to bound for a few more minutes.

Marcus won the 100m, 200m, 400m, and the 800m which was held a few days earlier. His friend and nemesis Reuben moved to the local fancy boys school this year, and suddenly Marcus's swathe of red ribbons have turned to blue.

He was thrilled to beat the school "beep test" record on Tuesday, with 11.1 (if that means anything to anyone). I think he may have gone a bit overboard boasting, as yesterday he came home to very glumly announce his record had already fallen - to a Grade 4 kid. And about 50 schoolmates came and told him about it.

Weakened

Hi. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Snork - zzzzz. OK, I'm sure I can do better than that. It's the tail end of a biggish weekend. I will rattle off the details.

Saturday morning was Little Athletics, for the last time this season, and possibly ever. They have been having a mini-championship, with ribbons for 1st, 2nd, 3rd right down to 10th in every event - which is a departure from the usual emphasis on personal bests only. As it happened we saw Marcus top the podium his massive discus throw last week, but he also did a state final qualifying time in the 1100m walk and came third in the javelin. Michael came third in the triple jump - we are actually delighted with these thirds as they both conquered an event that has been tricky for them this season. After easily winning his first javelin competition, Marcus has since had a lot of trouble getting the bloody thing to stick in the ground, which is mandatory.

I played Proper Soccer again, and I am starting to get a feel for my team. They are extremely limited, and it seems our fortunes each week are going to depend on who we can pull in to guest star for us. Our centre-forward is sixty years old. Yes. To be fair he has scored in both Summer Cup games. We have now had 1-2 and 2-4 losses. I am making some pretty naff mistakes each week but learning from them - it's been a long time since I did this stuff.

Today we had Marcus's birthday party at Zone 3 (laser tag), with 11 kids in all - Marcus and Michael, 4 from the neighbourhood, 2 cousins and three others from school. Elf made a piñata cake - with a solid (almost bombproof) shell of chocolate over it. Should have got a photo, sorry. Marcus went at it with a meat tenderising mallet, but it took a lot of punishment.

It turned into a very steamy day, and upstairs in the Zone it was fan-yourself-with-paper-plate time. The horde were called in for their first skirmish. Everyone else put jumpers and so forth in the Valuables Tub - Michael handed over Kings and Queens of England and Scotland which goes everywhere with him presently. I joined in and enjoyed it more than last time, because Michael knew what to expect and I didn't feel I had to follow him around. In fact in the run of things (you just blast away whenever you see a body) I shot him nine or ten times, then I felt bad, so I walked up and invited him to shoot me, which he did with glee.

It seemed to take forever to wind the party up - after 90 minutes we were shooed out of the party room, but we had told dropping-off parents to give it 2 hours, so then there was an extended loitering period. When we finally got home Elf and I went to sleep on couches.

Marcus received a Wii on his birthday, but on behalf of the whole family. No sooner had we drifted off to LaLaLand, than the boys next door, hopped up on sugar from the party, were in our loungeroom with their own Wii gear and the party was up and running again. Time for me to put on the radio earplugs and go and find something, anything to clean elsewhere around the house.

So - as I said, zzzzzzzz. As soon as I finish this sentence I am going to go and resume that beautiful, beautiful snooze I was having on the couch.

Hot

We just had the hottest weekend in recorded Hobart history - 39° followed by 37°. Or maybe it got to 40° both days - depends how sensational you want to be about it. So I have renamed it Hotbart. Tomorrow we are expecting a top of 19, and then in no time we will back to the freezing sleet - so I don't expect Hotbart to catch on.

I have finished* the freelance job that's been keeping me up til all hours for the last 3 weeks. Finished it at 1.30am this morning, at approx 27°.

On Saturday morning before it got seriously hot, I took the boys to Little Athletics. Our involvement is nearing its end - we have agreed with the boys to skip it next summer. In any case, Michael recorded personal bests in the long jump, discus and 200 metres. Marcus did a monster discus throw of nearly 20 metres - that's a qualifier for the State Finals but you need two qualifiers, and that is the last discus competition for the season. I am just glad I was there to see it - I tend to miss a lot of Marcus's Under 10 events while I am following Michael around trying to be helpful with the Under 8s.

*Hopefully it will not come back. Hopefully.

Little aths news

The last Little Athletics meet of the year is always at the Domain Sports Centre, for some reason. It's a proper athletics venue with the proper reddy-brown running track and proper run-ups for the sandpits etc. I still prefer the usual venue down by the beach though. The centre is very concretey - it's a bit like being at the East German Under 10 National Championships.

The lady who loves being on the PA was on the PA, talking about an exciting Visitor. "In three minutes the Visitor will be here, so could all Under 6, Under 7 and Under 8 athletes stop competing and gather in the middle of the field" Next, "The Visitor is now arriving boys and girls!" Cue a fairly fit-looking Santa in the back of a ute to enter, do a few laps around the kids, and then disembark and distribute lollies.

Despite the obvious white-bearded, red-suited jolliness and Christmas-like gift-giving, the lady who loves being on the PA kept up the air of mystery. "Could the Under 9s and tens now go out to see the Visitor please". It was taking on a sort of science fiction feel. "The Visitor will be leaving in five minutes so any 14s, 15s and 16s that would like to should go out now to see Santa, um, the Visitor. Thank you."

Michael refused to do the triple jump, as he is too worried about getting the hop, step and jump sequence wrong. I have decided to flatly bribe him with chocolate next time. He did well in his races, despite rubbernecking all around most of the way. Marcus made the most of the professional facilities, with four Personal Bests out of five events. His running style is gradually straightening up, and he's getting better times as a result.

Athletics boast-athon

The boys had a great night at Athletics on Wednesday. Michael threw himself into it and competed in everything, while Marcus set new personal bests in triple jump and turbo javelin.

Last week Michael was very reluctant to even do the warm up properly, but this time he joined in the swarm of kids and looked really at home. He is very confident socially and is always happy to invite himself into a group he doesn't know. There is one boy in his age group that he knows from school, that probably helps. He competed in everything this week - I was delighted.

I now have to try to keep an eye on both of them as they compete. It was easy at first the other night as they were doing jumps in adjacent sandpits. Marcus's personal best for the triple jump was a little under 6 metres - all three of his jumps beat that easily. Meanwhile Michael was leaping amazing distances in the long jump - he came second and beat the qualifying distance for the state finals!

Michael went from there to the 70 meter sprint, which he won. He was still in his school uniform, and wearing a badge that said SPELLING LEADER. "Hmm - bit of a running leader too" said the man who handed him the timing tape (the 1st placegetter always takes the tape from the official timer to the official recorder).

Shortly after this, while Michael was running the 200 meters (2nd) Marcus was winning the turbo javelin - he improved his personal best from 10 to 13 metres. I missed seeing it but it must have been an impressive throw.

Marcus got his first ever qualifier a few weeks back, in the walking race. He is now much more aware of qualifying standards as something to aim for. He's about 2 metres short in the turbo javelin, but he feels like he's got the knack now, and it might be do-able.

He's been really encouraging to Michael, and thrilled with his early success. He is quite proud of Michael generally. One of Marcus's age group who is a bit of a loudmouth, saw Michael's badge, and sneered "Spelling Leader? Huh - can you spell 'idiot'?" Michael just replied " I D I O T". Marcus stepped in and said "Michael - can you spell 'windscreen wipers' backwards? Michael did, at about the usual speed I would recite the alphabet. The loudmouth was silent. "He could do that when he was FOUR!" crowed Marcus, triumphantly.

Room swap

Fred is here, our first guest since Elf and I relocated to the former guest room at the front of the house. It's the nicest room really, but the computer desk and my drawing board are still in there so it's a little squeezy.

Fred's room is carpeted and has less traffic noise. Unfortunately it does have quite a bit of dog-romping-on-the-deck-at-dawn-with-a-plastic-milk-bottle noise. So the hound and I have just returned from a 1 hour walk around the hills. It is now 6.40am.

Our usual walk is up to the park behind the house, home to many rabbits. We started and finished up there this morning, and saw more than usual, due to the early hour. Winston's relationship with the rabbits is cordial. He takes a long time to notice them. They notice him and don't feel the need to act. If he is off the lead, he might swerve towards them a bit as he trots around, whereupon they skippity hop down a hole in a leisurely way. I imagine they'll exchange cards at Christmas.

Yesterday I had my weekly Economic Downturn Day at home. Just after everyone had left for school and work, as I was setting up Fred's room, I suddenly heard my boss Steve's voice. They were interviewing him on the radio about his plan for a new Tasmanian film/screen media body. It was quite strange. I half expected him to say "we have to get rid of the funding bottlenecks that have resulted in my staff spending one day a week at home tidying up their spare rooms".

This morning Michael is going to come along to Little Athletics to compete for the first time. That's the plan, anyway. Since his escapade we are trying to make sure he gets more exercise, and engages more with other kids. Elf has been taking Marcus and Michael to tae kwon do, and they are both getting into it. So far they have learned to block. They come home on Monday afternoons, blocking the house down.

POSTSCRIPT: Michael got cold feet once we arrived at Little Aths, but we made a deal that he would choose one event from the four and just do that, for starters. He chose the 100 metre dash, lined up happily when the time came, took it casually at about three-quarter pace and just missed out on first place by a nose. (21.2 sec for the record) He was delighted and did a lot of victorious arm waving. Hopefully next week I can negotiate two events.

Marcus, fleet of foot with spoon or without

Marcus did really well at the school athletics last week. His team won the relay, and he finished 1st in 100m, 2nd in 200m, 1st in 400m, 2nd in 800m and to top it off he clinched the blue-ribbon event, the egg-and-spoon race.

Yesterday he represented the school at the inter-school athletics carnival. He brought home a couple more ribbons, for 2nd in the 200 metres and 4th in the 100 metres. South Hobart came 3rd in their first year in Division D, a great effort I think.

Marcus is getting taller all the time, his legs are long and he just looks like an athlete. I still think he has a lot of improvement to come in his running style, but he has only just turned 8. so there is plenty of time to work that out. I now officially declare the athletics season over. We have a couple of weekends breather, before soccer starts again.

Debate at the high jump

Michael was off having fun inside a giant pine tree. I was reclining against the Fat Mat - the one they bring out once the bar gets up towards a metre. At this early stage the athletes were leaping onto the Flat Mat.

Someone else's 4 year old, on top of Fat Mat, to me: This will be finished soon.
Me: Well, it might not. Usually the high jump takes a long time.
SE4YO: No it doesn't.
Me: Yes it does.
SE4YO: No it doesn't.
Me: Yes it does.
SE4YO: No it doesn't.
Me: Yes it does.
SE4YO: No it doesn't.
Me: Yes it does.
SE4YO: You're not the prime minister
Me: No, I'm not.
SE4YO struts away triumphantly.

[25 minutes later]
SE4YO, back on top of Fat Mat: You were right.
Me: Yes, I was.
SE4YO hugs my head.

Saturday morning jumpfest

At Little Aths on Saturday Marcus had his first go at the high jump. He jumped the low bar very confidently, with a really good technique. Once it reached above 75mm his confidence wavered and his technique got lost. Still, a great start. He was really encouraging to the other kids too, which is always so good to see. After a while I realised the kids were all doing it - clapping each other and geeing each other up. (Which is not usually the case). Something about the physical layout of the high jump, and the last-man-standing aspect of it, seemed to engender a new team spirit in the QLA Under 8s.

There are 10 - 12 boys each week. Marcus sometimes places 4th, usually 6th - 9th, and only once before has placed 2nd. The emphasis is always on personal bests, and there is no fuss made about placings, which is terrific. However, I was thrilled for him on Saturday at the triple jump when he finished 2nd behind the wonder-boy Ben A. Ben holds most of the u/6 and u/7 records and is now starting in on the u/8s. On Marcus's first attempt he jumped a huge PB. His next jump was longer. For his last jump they had to move the take-off mat back, and it was bigger again, but couldn't be measured as he had overstepped.

Ruth Frith & Helen Searle

I just read a fantastic story in The Age's Good Weekend section - its not online or I would give you a link. The World Masters Games were on last month in Sydney. All the usual heart-warming stuff has been in the papers, but I didn't pay it much notice.

However - this story is about a woman who represented Australia in the 1958 and 1962 Commonwealth games and 1960 Olympics, and she is still competing. Which is pretty amazing. But not only is she still shot putting and throwing the hammer... so is her mother. Who she coaches.

Helen Searle is 70, she is the daughter. Her mum, Ruth Frith (100), used to go along and watch her compete in the Masters in the 1970s.

"I used to sit in the grandstand and watch and everyone would ask "Will you mind my bag, Mrs Frith?" This went on for years until suddenly, at 74, I said "oh heavens, I've had enough of bag-minding. I'm going to have a go myself!"

Sports Day 2009

The school oval was leveled and topdressed (whatever that is) in the holidays, and the new grass was not ready for the SPorts Day yesterday. So the school bussed all the kids to the Domain, and used the grown-up Athletics Centre. This meant I couldn't drop in as I usually do, so the following report is based on hearsay.

Michael had given indications in the morning that he would dodge his athletic responsibilities, but Mrs Howearth managed to get him well and truly involved. He picked up four ribbons, one first, two seconds and a third. He won the Monkey Race (for which he's been unwittingly training most of his life) and came second in the flat 50 metre dash.

Marcus of course was out of bed and sprinting up and down the living room, before dawn. His preparation paid off, and he won his 50 metre dash, and came second in his other three events. They both had a good time and earned a lot of points for their house, Derwent. Some of the final events had to be postponed, so the crucial question of whether Derwent or Wellington won the day, hangs in the air as we go to press.

I think to build up the rivalry they should think about renaming one of the houses. Instead of Derwent and Wellington, Napoleon and Wellington. Now we're talking. If anyone asks, just say it's named after that street in Battery Point.

Australia Day sports wrap

On Wednesday evening at Little Athletics, Michael won his second toddler race. This time it was a large and more experienced field, but he rose to the challenge and flew home in style. Marcus also had a good night, with personal bests in 3 of his 4 events.

Today is the last day of my very long holiday break, stretching back to Dec 24th. One thing I will miss is the daily cricket match on the deck with Marcus. Michael usually gets on with his important quarrying work and experiments with dirt. If the ball goes his way he's happy to field it. Today he decided to umpire, and in fact was umpiring from Silly Mid Off. You could call his style "consensus umpiring" - as he has no idea about the rules he asks both of us "is that out?" after every ball.

Both have been watching a lot of cricket on TV for the first time this summer. Marcus is soaking up cricket jargon like a sponge. For overseas readers, the most important fact to know about cricket is that everything has a picturesque name. There really is a fielding position called Silly Mid Off. On the radio they run through the fielding positions as set by the captain - he can move them around any time. This will sound something like "There's a Deep Third Man just moving a bit squarer now, Extra Cover, Cover Point, Gully, Silly Mid Off, Mid On, Short Midwicket, Deep Backward Square, and a Fine Leg.

Kids hear the term "versus" and assume it is an adjective in present tense - they then extrapolate that one team is "versing" another. This still isn't mashed into shape enough for Michael, who likes to say that South Africa is "bursting" Australia in the cricket. He's quite right in fact - they have handed us a cricket lesson this summer, and its not over yet.

Tiny athletes

Marcus is continuing to enjoy Little Athletics. He's got another batch of badges for me to sew on in my endearing wonky way. This evening we attended an evening meet for the first time, kicking off at 5.30. It was very pleasant down at the track, after a stuffy sort of hot day. The club meets down by Long Beach, and there is usually a sea breeze.

I had to take Michael with me, and had anticipated some trouble keeping him out of the long jump sandpits and out of the path of javelins and discii and so on. He surprised me by being very interested in the actual competitions taking place, and awfully keen to run, run, run everywhere. Not madly like a toddler, but purposefully, like a runner. "Dad, I'm going to run over to that black thing and back!" "Dad, I'm going to run over to that red thing then to the black thing and then back!" etc.

His moment arrived with the toddler race. He announced "I'm going to win this race because all the rest are just little kids". I felt a bit guilty as he is nearly five, and there were a few two year olds taking part. I was assured that if he's too young to register for Under 6, then this is the race for him. He streeted the toddler field, and was very, very proud. We've realised in recent years that he is an excellent runner, and he looked great streaming down the track. When the big kids had finished he had a go at the discus as well.

Meanwhile in the deadly serious world of the Under 7s, Marcus did two personal bests in a row in the long jump, ran a terrific 2nd in the 150 metres, and just outside his personal best in the 100m. So we had fish and chips to celebrate.

Under 10s may now flop

From the Little Athletics newsletter. Breaking News...

Amendment to High-Jump By Law
At the 2008 State Conference, a motion was moved to amend the age groups which undertake the scissor jump.

The previous By-Law stated that it was compulsory for Under 8, 9 and 10 athletes to perform the scissor jump. This has been amended to Under 8 and Under 9 only.

Therefore - Under 10–15 athletes have the option to either scissor or flop.

Plangent quoins

Actually, this will just be a meandering diary of the last week, and I couldn't think of a snappy title.

Marcus won all five chess matches and finished on top of the ladder in the Spring Cup at school. He played against the computer here today on the toughest setting and completely flogged it. (I have a feeling the software is a little wonky though).

He is riding to school now very proficiently and confidently. I lumber after him, with my manly courier bag in my hand like a giant camo-pattern clutch purse.

On Thursday we had a visit from the Premier at work. He had been through to announce something once before, and this time he burbled on about us being his good friends. We are good PR for him - the government give us seed money and we use it to earn export dollars in the "knowledge economy". He brought a wide range of public servants with him. One of his major people is the sister of our next door neighbour Sharon - that's the size of Hobart right there.

We were not particularly asked to drop everything and mingle, so most of us kept plugging away at our work. A functionary in a beautiful dark suit picked up a box of breath mints off Dave's desk and popped out a couple, saying "Thanks mate" as he headed back over to the heavy hitters.

We lost at soccer last night. Cam copped a punch in the guts at one stage, and the culprit was sin-binned for about five minutes. This made it 4 v 3, and we should have been able to capitalise, but we didn't. When the guilty party was allowed back on, he went up to Cam, apologised and shook hands, and said he'd thought Cam was someone else. Nice excuse in a 4-a-side game!

Today I took Marcus to athletics which has been off for a few weeks due to the regular rain. He did very well, getting a couple of personal bests in a row. I sewed on his badges last night, and it was nice to see him looking like he belonged with all the right insignia.

This afternoon we spent in desirable West Hobart, visiting Nick and Anna and the girls, then Matt and Mem and the girls. Matt is just back from 2 weeks in New York and Washington. I was staggered to realise that is his first trip outside Australia, as he is such a knowledgeable, interesting and "been overseas" type guy. Mem has never been overseas, so I am taking up a collection starting RIGHT NOW to send her to New Zealand. Matt and Mem have two of my drawings AND a Patrick Grieve, so I am thinking of making some little amazon.com-style cards for my exhibition that say "people who bought this also bought..."

Nick's job every December is to take our family photo for the Christmas newsletter. Unfortunately Michael was in a strop, so we will be trying again tomorrow with the timer function taking the place of Nick.

Little athletics debut

I took Marcus to his first Little Athletics meet on Saturday. The local group meet at Sandown Park near Sandy Bay beach - which is a lovely spot. It was a superb morning and really pleasant to be there, exchanging chit chat with the other parents. He had four events - long jump, 100m race, 150m race and discus. He did pretty well in all. They keep detailed records of everyone's times and distancs, and the emphasis is heavily on improving your own performances.

Katherine from Marcus's grade at school was there, sporting five or six badges she had earned. When Marcus got the idea that badges were for improving, not winning, he very quickly hatched the idea of deliberately doing badly at his first try. That way - next week, badges aplenty! I commended his ingenuity but asked him to please perform on his merits lest we provoke some kind of stewards enquiry.

It was all pretty relaxed and fun. In some cases a bit too relaxed. Discuses (which I really want to call discii) were flying in all directions, whizzing past heads. I thought (but didn't say) that giving discuses to the six year olds was like giving whisky to the Indians.

I can see if Marcus got involved on a weekly basis, I would find myself becoming a steward, then perhaps a marshall and perhaps, eventually, a delegate. Somewhere there is a blazer with my name on it.