An Hour of Squash

I was due to play squash with Sophie this evening, and we'd scheduled an hour to play, so we could really work up a sweat. Given how much I'd been eating in restaurants this past week, and how bloated I feel in general, I was looking forward to the workout.

I wondered if we would get one however, as on one of her first hits, Sophie managed to hit the ball up into the tiny gap above the heating vents, and the ball got stuck up there. I'd often come close, and seen the balls stuck up there, but had thought it took such precise timing and accuracy to get a ball up there, that it would never happen, but now Sophie had done it on one of her first shots.

Thankfully, when I raced back to the locker room, I was able to find another squash ball in my bag, so we were able to continue playing. Imagine if I hadn't had a spare, however!

It was a good rally, although as usual I was beating the pants off of Sophie. You could tell she was getting frustrated with continually losing, and got quieter as we continued to play and she tried to focus more. I will admit, my game was getting lazy, and I was hitting some questionable shots. I really need to practice more.

I could also tell that Sophie was desperate to win, and getting a bit anxious and upset due to her continual losses. So on the final game, I was getting tired and had missed a few shots, and it ended up with a tie score heading into the match point. Did I purposefully throw that last point? Perhaps. But Sophie was so excited, cheering and jumping up and down, that I knew it was the right call. Her whole mood for the evening changed, as she became more talkative and started smiling again.

We then changed, showered, and headed to a Mexican restaurant near Embankment that we'd said we would visit last week. The food was relatively good, with some pulled pork that was particularly good. It was more expensive than our £10 meal two weeks ago, but at $25 it still seems normal compared to the £50 at Automat after our first game. We talked a bit about her upcoming birthday in January, and just the usual boys and life chatter. I realised once again how much like me Sophie is, for as much as she loves her usual party-girl life, she also rather would like to find a boyfriend. Yet, much like me, is unwilling to compromise when she just doesn't fancy otherwise suitable candidates. I desperately think that there's something I'm supposed to learn from Sophie, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is yet.

I had her flipping through her schedule for the next month, and as expected she was booked nearly every day, although I was surprised to find that I was actually more booked up than she was. Not like it's a contest, but I always think of Sophie as the person with the busiest social calendar out there, so it's surprising to think that I could surpass it.

I felt like I was struggling more to entertain her than usual, although she did laugh quite a bit at my usual witty remarks and comments. Still, I was somewhat glad when it came time to head home, as it was getting late and Sophie was in a bit of a funny mood. Or maybe I was. Hard to know sometimes, but I was glad to go home and head to bed...