Last night at the Pacman run, the guys convinced me that they were really short on girls to play rugby today, and since I happened to be free and have a clue as to how to play rugby, I figured it was time to dust off the old rugby boots.
First though, there was a day of work to get through. It was hilarious, as I struggled to leave the house by 11:30 AM, and the thought did occur to me, "You realise that normal people would have been at work for three hours already?" Someone mentioned to me that when your job slows down, you slow down too, and that's not such a good thing. I'm starting to realise that even if I don't actually have a lot to do at work, I'd better start filling my schedule, if only to make sure I do things elsewhere in my life.
Most interesting part of the day was when I got a FB message from Lavan sending me a link of an ultimate Frisbee catch saying, "this is from my friend Robbie you met over the weekend". So Robbie is passing on messages to me? Hmmmm....
Finally it was time to escape the office, so I got changed and made my way to Regent's Park. I ran into Vicky, one of the newer hashers, at the gate, and shortly after Ross joined us and we all headed over to the pitch.
As we were standing there waiting for the game to start, it was just our luck that the skies absolutely opened up. I mean, absolute downpour, like an outdoor shower, "you're-soaked-in-ten-seconds" kind of rain. Standing out in the most unsheltered area of Regents Park, we all dashed for the shelter of one of the few solitary trees, although I'm not sure how much good it really did us. I once again cursed my stupidity, for forgetting not only an umbrella, but even something warm which might have kept me from shivering out there in that rain. Mostly however, I was concerned about my laptop getting wet, and so I was glad when the others offered to put there bags over it in the hopes of offering some protection.
Finally the rain did stop, and it was time for us to play. It was also a welcome surprise when two guys who had just played in a previous game asked, "Could you guys use some spare players? We notice that you've got only one sub." Yes, absolutely!!
Despite the presence of our two last-minute ringers, we still got totally thrashed by the other team, which was somewhat expected, given that we were playing in a tougher league this year than we'd been in before. Still, it was fun to be out playing and running around, and we were rewarded for our perseverance through the rain with a spectacular double-rainbow making a perfect arch over the playing fields.
I did get overly stuck-in at one point, taking down a player on the opposing team who was at least twice my size, so I didn't "take him down" such as "mildly impede his progress towards the end zone", and ended up hitting the ground on my shoulder quite hard and going head-over-heels. Thank goodness for the rain once again, for at least making the ground softer than it would have been otherwise!
At last the final whistle blew, and we all headed off back home, tired, dirty, and ready to go home and warm up after being soaked in that rain!
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