Day 12, 170309

Tonight I ticked another thing off my list: number 86, "Whack a bucket of balls at a driving range."

There are so many people helping me with this, it's incredible. All sorts of people are popping up and saying "oh, so-and-so can help you with this, here, let me sort it out" and all of a sudden, I'm on a driving range with a couple of very nice chaps called Richard and Liam. Sam, of T&C fame, asked me at lunchtime via text if I wanted to go to a driving range with her partner while she was at dance class, so of course I said yes.

So, Richard, myself, and the partner of one of the other dance class attendees met up in Pudsey and headed off to The Manor, apparently some sort of hotel/conference centre with the word golf written in tiny letters on the sign outside. Both Liam and myself were newbies to this sort of thing, so we had no bats. Clubs. Thankfully Richard did, so after a bucket of balls (a whole £3.20!) was procured, and the loan of a stick from Richard, we found three consecutive hutches and looked out at a field containing nothing but a couple of flags, some nets, and a whole load of white blotches.

A few brief tips from Richard, and we were off. I started off hitting balls not too badly, but then I started slicing the ball, and topping it, and overthinking what I was doing. Making an effort to relax, I started getting - aha - into the swing of things, and wasn't doing too badly for the first time out. After half the bucket was gone I realised just how tiring this was getting, especially in the shoulders and wrists, and my hands were tingling with the repeated impact vibrations.

It was very therapeutic, though. There's definitely something to be said for hitting balls with sticks, and when we'd finished I did notice a distinct looseness in my shoulders that wasn't there before. A bucket is 80 balls, although I wasn't counting them in any way, and I reckon I'm going to feel every one of them tomorrow. Anyway, thank you Rich, Liam and Sam for being on board for this one; I reckon the occasional bucket o'balls might be whacked in the future.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (12/365), #13, #26, #66 (6/250), #85 (1/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 2
Remaining: 99