Day Two Hundred and Fourteen - Volley Ball

Dear all,

Another iconic sign that Autumn is here is the start of the Volley Ball League and this year, Darren had kindly signed me up for the season and tonight was the first game of the year.

The league is held at the Pretty River Academy which hosts a superb gym where we would play. I had already suggested to Darren that Volley Ball is not something I excel in for several reasons:

1. I haven't played it before

2. I am short

3. I don't know the rules.

Not a huge disadvantage but enough to make me feel slightly apprehensive prior to the start of the game.

Darren was extremely supportive suggesting that because I am inherently quite 'sporty', I would be fine..

My fears were put to rest seeing a sea of familiar faces at the game: Anna, Nadia, Dave, Erin, Erin and co. We started a warm up 'volley' at which point I proved to my comrades that I had no experience whatsoever and was starting from point zero. Again, everyone was VERY generous in supporting my game to which I was very grateful.

As with all 'team' sports, it is important to realize that despite the fact that everyone [always] ensures you that it is 'relaxed' and 'non-competitive', it never is and the inner warrior tends to be released in everyone playing.

Fortunately there was no 'team picking' so I crept in behind Nadia and Anna where I felt that I could easily *hide* if I got into problems. Again, this plan was thwarted as the games were run on a rotation and so everyone got to play in every position, multiple times.

After a couple of games, I was starting to get the hang of it and even managed to hit the ball. My strength currently seems to lie in 'the serve' but I will endeavor to expand this range of skills next week. Darren and Dave were on fire and displayed strong Volley Ball skills over on another team. I was happy to survive the game unscathed and had all in all had a brilliant evening!

Above several photos to give a feel of the games. It was actually quite difficult to take any pictures as had a limited time frame and the gym was filled with very stark fluorescent lighting. Needless to say I managed to get a few pictures of Darren, Dave and Nadia in action!