Hockey and other sports!

Lydia being the sporty one in the family, tried out for the Rep Team of new castle. Harald organised that before we even got to Australia.
On one fo the hottest days in January, being the hockey is a winter sport in South Africa, it was a little weird to put those long socks and shinpads on. Anywho, there we were.
Lydia was playing  well and easily got into the team. Then someone mentioned that she didn't write down to which club she belongs... well, maybe because we did not even know she had to have a hockey club. We had no idea that school children had to belong to clubs to play hockey.
Now, which club to choose? there are so many? One of the parents said we could just as well belong to the Newcastle Club as the club coach is one of the people who picked the Rep Team, and so, that's how Lydia became a member ofthe Novacasstrian hockey Club.
Luckily all the competitions were played at these fields which made it easy since I now knew where they were. However, the Rep Team had a little weekend planned in Canberra where we would play interstate hockey.
With new school, new hockey clubs and new tennis clubs and tournaments in all of these plus school sports carnivals, Lydia was more than a little busy.
She would come home from school and tell me that footy is a stupid game or she doesn't like soccer, but move did she move.
And so winter came and the weekend to Canberra arrived. Harald in all of this, was really a bit of a missing link as BHP always had him flying off to some other country or state. So here I was, gathering my whits to take the 5 hour drive to Canberra on my own. You know, when you get that wild look in your eyes, and someone says: "ah don't worry it'll be fine..."  Well this one morning at the Bible study, Cathatrina saw that my eyes were a little wilder than normal and she said, I love driving, I will go with you!
Wow, at first I thought, she just said it, but wow, she actually did it! Thanks Catharina, I really think you saved my life and Lydias that weekend.
Driving, then wasn't so bad, but when we got there, as everyone warned us, it was freezing! Canberra gets that way. It felt like home, almost. It rained most of the way down and I prayed that everyone will be sensible and cancel the weekend. But I forgot we were in Aus. The sport is king!
The Friday night games were WET and SLOSSHY! but Lydia is a trooper and she did wat had to be done!!
Then Saturday mornning it the whether cleared and we had wind all day long. Not the breezy wind that you can handle, no winds that take your breath away. Come Sunday  morning, it was jsut cold and not so bad at all, until we got to the hockey fields and they turned into ICE. O boy, did these girls struggle to stay on there feet! crunch, crunch all the way through the match! And the team did as was required of them, they lost so we could all go home!
Well that was the first year hockey down and hey, we saw Canberra at its best. Thanks Cathatrina!