Man of steel

I had an OK day at work, came home and thought that perhaps I wouldn't play today. I've played all but two days this month, and yesterday I played twice: once with my fan and once on my own.

But then things started to go a bit askew and I got flustered. The fan came home reporting an incident that, had it happened at my work place, would have been my problem. I've been trying to stop myself running through the what ifs, thinking what his workplace ought to do, what I would do.

Then I made pastry and ran out of butter, which I needed for cheese sauce. So I put the pastry case in the fridge to chill, turned the oven on to warm, and walked down to the further of the two grocers  because I'm fussy about my butter and the closer of the shops tends to have the more basic stuff. Of course, the new improved Co-op no longer carries my preferred brand, so I came home with something else. So now dinner is running late and I needed to set the table, wash up, tidy the kitchen and hang some washing up while the pie is baking rather than in between the preparation, leaving me with no piping time. I'm feeling cross, flustered, a bit hard done by, and tired.

You'd think at this point I'd be grateful that I'd already decided not to pipe, but as soon as I felt I probably wouldn't have time to do it I really, really wanted to do it. So I flung myself and my pipes down on a stool and played right through Perth and Valery, without dots. Valery just came to me: I could hear a bar in my head and wanted to play it, without even realising what it was. Perth I just decided to play, and there it was.

And now I'm to tired to bother with anything much else, but I don't care because I dug deep and pulled something out of the hat, despite the pressure and the fatigue. Not unlike Mr Murray, the Man of Steel, my tennis hero.