Summer is really here. I know this not just because it is extremely hot, but my house is full of children. In addition to the usual three I have my stepchildren Hugo and Julia here, along with Julia’s best friend Annabelle.
My three-year-old son has added a rather eccentric touch to his summer wardrobe. He insists on wearing knee-length skiing socks at all times. With his sandals. He looks like your original mad Englishman abroad but doesn’t seem to care. I have tried in vain to tell him he’ll be too hot and that he looks deranged. “I love them,” he tells me. “They’re so pretty.”
This morning my stepson Hugo started to teach him to play cricket. This is something I am all for. I don’t mind if he becomes a tennis champion or a cricket star as long as I can spend my retirement sitting in a sunny place gazing at him.
Of course he may have lost his ski-sock-wearing habit by then. They certainly won’t go with cricket whites. But at least for now I can improve on the Noel Coward quote. “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun wearing ski socks.”
Adds a little something, don’t you think?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007
When my nephew was about the same age, his thing was cowboy boots. He wore them constantly, even to play on his little baseball team! Thankfully he eventually outgrew the obsession. It makes for a good story nowadays.
I once said I would never watch baseball because it drug on so.
My boyfriend’s favourite sport is cricket. Give him a national team and he’ll give you more stats then anyone cares to know.
I know spend my freetime with him knitting him a cricket sweater while listening to the Kiwis…lose.