I say, anyone for tennis....?

Not me, guv. Useless. Always was. In school, tennis was yet another sport I could write off as a lost cause. My lost causes in the sports department are innumerable .. At the age of 18, I was taken to Centre Court by a school friend whose father had acquired tickets. It was a very good introduction to being a sporting spectator.

So now we are in the Wimbledon season and you won't find me sitting in front of the telly all afternoon. Not until the finals when Dearest and I will sit down and watch together. However, I have got a new racket.

What do you reckon? Could give Roger Federer a run for his money with this one. That is, if I switched on the button that fires an electric current through the strings. Yes, it's a bug zapper! And I have always wanted one of these. I've seen them advertised in the small ads in newspapers since I was a child and secretly yearned to own one. What a sad child whose burning ambition was to fry flies? And an even sadder adult who pounced on this in the gardening centre, last week.

The second heatwave of the season has meant that the French door is ajar all day which means it's open season on flies,wasps and the perishing flying ants, which even managed to slow down play at Wimbledon this week. Now I am armed and ready with a mighty forearm swing and the accompanying bottom-sashaying, as I wait to take aim. It is however, not as easy as you'd imagine, as I pointed out to Dearest who wrested the racket from me, thinking he could do better. You have to corner the insect against a wall and then zap it when there is no escape.

 As flies to wanton boys, are we to the the gods, they kill us for their sport. I'm not sure this is what I want after all. In the height of the fly season, it's not a great time to discover one's inner buddhist.