After barely a few hours of sleep (damn my inability to go home from a party at a reasonable hour!), my alarm went off, and it was time to get up and make my way to Putney, where I was meeting people to go play polo.
I arrived right at 8 AM, although turned out that the girl I was meeting wasn't ready to go yet. No problem, since our ride hadn't arrived yet either. Yet at about 20 minutes past, Sophie and Theo (from the Lansdowne Club) showed up, and we were off.
We arrived at the stables about an hour later, and pretty quickly got into our boots and mounted up. I chatted with the grooms for a bit in Spanish, which seemed to set them at ease, as they were quickly accepting me as a pro player and one of "them". Yet I did sort of wonder about how it set me aside from the other three, none of whom spoke a word of Spanish. Still, I felt it was good practice for me, and it was nice to realise that my brain hadn't totally abandoned me, that I did still remember how to speak Spanish.
Playing was, in a word, fantastic. I was on a lovely white pony, who while not the best I've ever ridden, was quite reliable and set me up in nice lines with a steady stride that allowed me to work on my swing, which definitely needed some help. Although it was wonderfully enjoyable, because while at first I kept whiffing the ball and doing poorly, after a while my swing came back to me and I was steadily whacking the ball down the field.
Also, the setting was absolutely extraordinary, as we were playing in the shadow of this extravagant mansion, apparently owned by an MP. As we came up into the fields to practice as well, there were deer everywhere, and it was just the most amazingly bucolic setting, the mansion and the fields and the deer... Absolutely stunning.
Also, I'd liked Sophie from the moment I met her, but I was delighted to discover that upon further acquaintance I liked her even more. It was pretty clear from the start that I was a better player than she was, but we had loads of fun just running around, stick-and-balling together, and running a few drills. She admitted that it can get somewhat boring just stick-and-balling by herself, so it was good to have me along. I can only hope that she enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed hers. Still, on the whole I was surprised at how quickly I liked her and we clicked, making me wonder why that happens so easily with me with girls, and so rarely with boys!
Finally after a little over an hour, we were taking more and more walk breaks, and it became clear that the horses were quite tired too, so we headed back to the stables. After that, we went up to the main house and even though it was just 11 AM, we decided we could go for some beer. I was glad to see that the world over, the same tradition remains, of always going for a beer after polo (heaven, in my opinion!)
We sat there eating crisps and chatting in a mixture of Spanish and English (or at least I chatted in Spanish with the groom, as everyone cracked up about how I'd turn to them with questions, and they'd point out that they didn't speak Spanish so they had no idea what I'd said!) The groom, Nico, said I spoke very good Spanish, which I kindly thought was a bit of a stretch, but it was nice to hear all the same.
Nico actually asked me if I'd be interested in playing in chukkas that afternoon at 5 PM, and I have to admit I'd had such a fun morning playing, that I was tempted. After all, there was quite simply the flattery of that after seeing me play for just an hour, they obviously thought I was good enough for chukkas. But I had to remind myself of my oath to myself, that there would be no chukkas for me until I'd actually done enough stick-and-balling to be a valuable contributor to the game. So I begged off claiming I was out of shape and needed more time to get into condition, as this had been my first day back playing since last fall.
Finally we headed home, where to my dismay I couldn't seem to stay awake in the car. I remember a vaguely bizarre conversation about whether or not it would be a wise idea to pick up a deer that we saw dead at the side of the road, and whether we could find someone to butcher it. Yet the exhaustion of the exercise and fresh air just kept overcoming me, and I wasn't nearly as good of a conversational companion as I should have been on the way home.
So you can imagine my surprise when Theo offered not only to drop me at my house, but also got out of the car to give me a kiss and asked me if he could find me on Facebook. Truly? Who knows what he meant by it, but it was interesting nonetheless...
In the end, I just got back to my flat and crashed, totally exhausted but totally delighted with my day out playing polo!
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