Angelina Melwani and
Mini-Me share their Olympic journey
By the age of about
four, Mini-Me was displaying an early taste for schadenfreude and I
think it was me who had inadvertently cultivated this bent by
recounting tales from my childhood. I found that the stories she most
appreciated invariably involved a degree of mild cruelty and
peer-induced humiliation. And there could be no more fertile ground
for such stories than school, specifically the sports field. Failing
to learn to swim in late autumn in the freezing cold outdoor swimming
pool which was peppered with dead daddy-long-legs. A failed javelin
attempt which landed me on my bottom in a ditch covered in a
chocolate coating of mud. And these are just the highlights. All in
all, my collective PE attempts were a jaw-dropping display of
physical ineptitude. If there had been yoga on the curriculum, I
might have excelled at it. But by the time of the post A level boat
dance (the dodgy uncle of today's high school prom, held on a
non-travelling, rickety old vessel docked somewhere on the Thames),
my need for sport had been sated only by hours wasted at the wonky
pool table in the common room.
Mini-Me however is
destined for greater things. She can ride a bike (thanks to my
wonderful friend who taught her while I was away on a trip), she can
swim (thanks to years of swimming lessons, come summer and winter),
she did a couple of terms of karate (before giving up because it was
too stressful) and we have discovered that she has good aim (through
a couple of goes at velcro archery on a school trip and at summer
camp last year). I am very relieved that having a supremely
mal-coordinated mummy-on-the-edge has merely dampened and not drowned
her prospects of sporting prowess.
Mini-Me and I were in
Harrow holding a banner for super-boy Jai Padhiar (son of my friend
and colleague, Versha, Sing and Sign franchisee for Brent Cross,
Edgware and Mill Hill) as he carried the Olympic torch - and a big
grin. Together, over a greasy takeaway, we watched the rousing
Olympic opening ceremony, feeling in our bones that this was the
start of something we would never forget. Mini-Me stayed up very late
to witness the relentless parade of participating countries, yanking
me awake from post-biriani zonkage towards the end, screaming, “Mum,
wake up! It's team GB!”
In the farce which was
the Olympic ticket drama, I managed to claim possession of the
hottest tickets of the games, (and if they weren't the hottest, we
were darn well gonna pretend that they were) Beach Volleyball.
Predictably, I had never attended a public sporting event other than
Mini-Me's sports day and a baseball game while on holiday in New
York. Whilst I anticipated some socio-anthropological enlightenment
to be gained from attending the games and I was really looking
forward to many years of smug reminiscence of how I took Mini-Me to
the London 2012 Olympics, I simply was not prepared for how much
PROPER ENJOYMENT would actually be had on the day! The night before
the match, I went online to find out about whom we would be seeing
and was absolutely delighted to realise that we were going to be
watching MEN as well as women and the men's teams included Brazil and
the potential hotness of Italy. Result! I had just assumed that the
tickets were for Women's Beach Volleyball only.
Mini-Me and I were
entranced with the festive atmosphere. The weather was fabulous, the
tip of the London Eye was visible on one side and we couldn't help
but get sucked into the sporting spirit, shouting and whooping all
the way. We particularly enjoyed the swimwear-clad dancers shaking
their male and female booties in a joyous conga (sadly not shown on
telly) every ten minutes. It was major fun!
This previously alien
enthusiasm for watching sports tightened its fist around the baton of
our mini household and raced away with us throughout the first two
weeks of August. We were overwhelmed with Olympic fever and fervour,
glued to the telly watching diving, fencing, volleyball, pole vault,
triathlon, synchronised swimming, running, unidentified flying object
throwing and much, much more.
Like many parents, I'm
wondering how to capitalise on this Olympic enthusiasm and encourage
Mini-Me to get out there and “do it”. I'm guessing that the way
forward is less stories of my epic failures and creating more
opportunities to practice and excel together. I guess I'll be
volunteering myself for target practice just as soon as the eleven
plus is over...
For more Life on the
Edge with Angelina including a trip to Lake Garda, visit
mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Angelina runs Sing and Sign baby
signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. More info at
www.singandsign.com.
