Baptism

This weekend I went to my second Catholic baptism. We started very early on Saturday morning. Up and ready to be out the door at 9:15. We had a 45 min drive to Wakefield westgate station. Got there in good time - enough time to even have a coffee and bacon sandwich. The train was running 5 mins late, the norm.It turned up at 10:23. We were in coach B though which is all the way up the other end of the platform. A brief run to our carriage and we were on our 2 hour stint to King Cross.

Coach B is the silent coach, so no phone calls or loud music. I started on some homework and when I finished this I did a driving theory test (which is really pretty stupid at times). Once in King Cross we had 1:30 to get to Earling. So off we ran to the tube.Unfortunately some cleaver person decided to close the circle line, so well done to him. Close off central London's most used line when there is a International rugby game on and a Chelsae game. This meant that the Piccadilly line, which we were on, was packed as it was in the right direction to both games.

So like a tin of sardines we packed into this train whilst just managing to hang onto our luggage. We got the Northfields tube station with 35 mins till the start. we made the short walk to the church in good time, after correcting an early miss directoin.With 20 mins to go we piled into the function room, which was the church hall, and went into the toilets to suit up. With minutes to spare we made it. I got the job of being the video camera man. Bit dounting really, don't cock this up as they may not speak to you if you screw up the record of their daughters baptism.

The service was very short, 20 mins. Not even a him. It was a nice church, I thought it was quite plain for a Catholic church. The priest kept stumbling on his words. The baby (Sofia) was great, beaming all the way through. I got some good shots of it all.The church hall started to fill up as the food and beer went down.

The food was not your normal run of the mill stuff, it was Greek. Sofia's Dad is a Greek Cyriptiat so they decided to do some Greek food. Wasn't really my kind of thing, but it was different. As the party was going I was walking up and down every now and again filming everybody. I some how managed most of the time not to get spotted so got nice shots of people being natural. The party started to go down at about 5. That wasn't the end if the night. About 15 of us went to the pub down the road for a few hours. (£3.45 a pint!). We finished there in the early hours of the morning and trundled to some friends just down the road.

Senior Rugby

This Saturday I played my first game of senior rugby. It was quite different to my normal Junior rugby. I play down at Heath rugby club (next to the Garden centre in West Vale). I've played junior rugby at Heath since I was 14. That is training on a Wednesday night and playing on nearly every Sunday from mid September till around early May.



Heath have 3 senior sides. 1st, 2nd and 3rd 15. The first team are all young and well skilled players. The second team is fringe 1st team and not 1st team standard players. The 3rd team is old men, unskilled players and young player, like myself. I played in the 3rd 15.



I went down to Heath expecting to find. a lot of old guys who couldn't run any more, and some old young talentless players. This is what I found. The tight end prop could even walk properly, never mind do anything else. Also it seemed to be a requirement for playing in the 3rd 15 that you have to have a belly.

I started on the bench, which I expected to. The game kicked off and we started really well. A try inside the first five minutes, under the posts. Only for the conversion to be charged down. Fortunately Selby (opposition) gave away a penalty near their own line, which we converted for another 3 point. 8-0 inside 10 minutes. We were looking very dominant. Unfortunately I was wrong.

The old guys fitness levels only were 10 minutes. 3/4 of the team were tiring already. Unfortunately our opposition weren't. Selby were such a big club that they had 5 senior teams. We were playing their 4th 15. So their fitness levels were much better. By the end of the half we had been under pressure all the rest of the half. The score reflected this. 8-17 down.

I came on at half time to a alien position to me. I normally play in the front row, in the forwards. I was playing on the wing. So bit different. I did well thought holding up one try (holding the man up when he was over the try line so he couldn't put the ball down). I also had 1 of two line breaks in the second half. I didn't really get the chance to do much though, because I didn't get the ball.

We lost the game.I don't know by how much as i wasn't concentrating on that. I did learn quite a lot from the game though. I learnt that this level of rugby is not above me at all. The players enjoy playing but they don't have the fitness level to keep going. This is good for somebody like me, who does have the fitness levels. I have also been asked back to play any time I can. I hope I can keep on playing and learning at this different level.