Image verses Reality

Image in my head: Nonchalantly standing in Hunter boots, wearing Joules style gillet , guillet, body warmer, sipping designer beverage bought en route, cheering the team on and taking occasional snap to instagram and facebook the success of my son's footie team. (Who, please dear Lord, are finally due a win.) All done and dusted in one hour fifteen minutes and home in time for lunch.

Reality: Schlepped  across muddy field in torrential rain, my decade-old, sensible Clark's leather boots finally giving in to years of duress so that my socks  are beginning to feel a dampness they shouldn't.  Sporting my similarly old, all-purpose jacket zipped to the throat, and  wearing a pair of well worn gloves, lingering in the pockets from the last football season; I trudged across the the pitch, ready to do my duty as a supportive parent. In a desperate moment realising I'd left my good one at home, I had armed myself with the only umbrella left in the car; a miniature, Disney Princess one. I decided against purchasing some brown liquid purporting to have something to do with coffee from Baz's Cafe Shack and arrived pitch side only to be told that the match was  cancelled due to the pitch being waterlogged. (I could have told them that from the comfort of my own home, thirty minutes before we set out for the match.)  A sense of relief prevailed for both myself and my eleven year old, who is more of a fair weather player.  We set off back across the muddy field, now knee deep in mud, clambered into the car, grinned at each other and set off in search of hot food and drinks.

Lesson learnt: Life is not a rosy commercial. For the most part real life is messy, changeable, unpredictable and  we are often to be found knee deep in the brown stuff. The best thing we can do is throw out our image of how life should be and just get on with how life actually is. Let's laugh as much as possible at ourselves as well as our circumstances. It's good for the soul.