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Never admit it

On Saturday I participated in a tournament at our club.  I had to play 4 matches.  The player closest to my age was 20 years younger  and there were 16 of us.  We began at  8.30am and by the time I played the fourth match my toes hurt from all the running and pressure on my trainers.  The rest of me was in good shape and I survived the day coming in 7th place, but it was a long day.   I arrived  home at 8.00pm tired after a 12 hour day and having to speak French all day had increased my feeling of having had a good work out.  At home I soaked in a bath and felt fine, congratulating myself on still being able to compete with the best of the them.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling like a truck had run over me,  I went downstairs walking like the geriatric that I am and wondered if I could make it back up to my bed.  After consideration I decided that I could drink my tea quite comfortably downstairs.  I checked my toes, 2 nails were black.  After an hour I went up to shower and amazingly felt better.  I received a text from one of the players asking if I had any bad effects after such a hard day.  'Not at all', I replied, 'I feel fine.'

Sunday evening I went to a concert in Angers.  My ticket number was row ZA seat number one.  The end seat on the row was 16 so I assumed that I needed to go to the other end.  When I worked my way round I found the end seats occupied by 2 women who indignantly told me that I had to go to the other end.  'I have just been there' I said weakly as she pointed out that her seat was 14.  How can that be?  Had all that exercise yesterday affected my brain?  I drudged back to the ushers and asked where number 1 was.  'There', she said, pointing  to the middle of the row where a solitary seat remained unoccupied.   I made my way to the seat, confused as to how number one can be in the middle while 16 is one end and 14 at the other end of the same row.  Who does that?  But there it was.  Number 1 in the middle of the row.

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